


Inhale With Ease

by Vulpesmellifera



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, COVID-19, Caretaker John Watson, Divorce, Jealous John, Love Letters, M/M, Mary Lives, Quarantine, Sickfic, season 4 canon-divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpesmellifera/pseuds/Vulpesmellifera
Summary: In the years after Vivian Norbury's capture, life seems to work out just as John planned. He's got that respectable job at the surgery and goes home to his wife and child. He joins Sherlock on cases a couple times per week. It's a rhythm he can live with - just enough adrenaline highs to balance out the drudgery of a normal bloke's life.Until a pandemic, and Victor Trevor, arrive in London.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 302
Kudos: 363
Collections: Isolated Johnlock Collection, Sherlock Author Showcase 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this story when I saw this tweet: "Is anyone writing a quarantine fic where s4 never happened and John and Mary get divorced as soon as they're out of their time together?" Credit to @avawtsn. The idea wouldn't leave me alone, and since my job was closed down for a couple months and left me caring for my toddler at home, I decided to take it on.
> 
> The playlist [on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Uoe6IYoMATxZqhKBEVOSg?si=sG02VXL7Ra-JUK2qZxuLUg).
> 
> I am neither British nor a medical professional, so apologies in advance if there are mistakes. 
> 
> A million billion thank yous to notjustamom and Saratonin for the beta. Y'all are stars.

The pall of grey fog settled along the row of houses, obscuring the windows and fences in the distance with all the gloom of a burial. The mist lay cold and clammy along his neck as John unlocked the front door, blinking water droplets from his eyelashes. 

The shout of “Daddy!” pulled a grin from his face as he entered the warm house. Rosie, pig-tailed and wearing an art smock smeared with who-knows-what, shot down the hallway toward him, a brilliant grin lighting up her whole face. John scooped her up - careful of the stains - and kissed her cheek. “How’s my little honeybee?” Sherlock called Rosie “Bee,” and John had taken to calling her the same, though he’d seen Mary frown over it.

“We’re painting!” she said. Like any precocious four year old, Rosie had many interests. Dress-up. Gardening with her little seed pots in the windows. Pretending to be a vet at her shelves of stuffed animals, complete with her own little doctor’s kit. Painting at her art table. Looking through her microscope and drawing diagrams in a little notebook that Uncle Sherlock gave her. No one could readily identify her drawings, but she took it very seriously. “I’m doing science, daddy,” she’d tell him in a no-nonsense voice as she donned a little white lab coat that swamped her small frame. 

John put her on the floor and watched as she ran back down the hallway toward the kitchen. The odour of cooking spices wafted in the air as he hung his coat and removed his shoes, sliding his feet into a pair of comfortable house slippers. A corner of peeling wallpaper caught his eye - the same bit of curl that he’d been meaning to fix for ages. For the umpteenth time, he ignored it, wiping the damp from his neck as he settled into the creature comfort of his evening routine.

He padded down the hall and entered the kitchen where Rosie stood on a stool at the table, looking over her watercolors. Mary stood at the stove with a cookbook open on the counter. 

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Mary said without looking at him. She held a bowl and a serving spoon in her hand. Domestic life had changed her a bit. Her sharp edges had rounded, her hair had grown out in its natural colour, and crow’s feet formed around her eyes. Pretty, of course, but at times, John couldn’t help but look at her and wonder about her past disguises. Today seemed to be one of those days where the thought niggled at the back of his mind, and he shoved it away. Must have been the weather.

He kissed the top of Rosie’s head. “And what are we painting today?”

“A horse,” she said, as she smashed the paintbrush in the bruised looking purple and applied it to the white paper. 

John looked over at Mary again, who was now ladling potatoes from the pot on the stove into the serving bowl. He cleared his throat.

“What is it?” Her voice rang sharply in the room.

“They’ve sent a notice from the NHS today about COVID-19.”

She looked up from the potatoes, her intense blue eyes fastening upon him. “And?”

“I don’t think we’re prepared for it if the reports of what’s happening in Italy happen here. There are about forty confirmed cases already.”

She set the bowl of potatoes on the counter and wiped her hands with a towel. “It’s more than the elderly, isn’t it?”

“More likely to kill them. But, it’s putting young people in the hospital. Some are dead.”

Mary shook her head. “Do you think they’ll shut things down?”

“I think they’ll have to. But I’m just saying we should be careful until then, is all. It’s...spreading. And we have Rosie.”

“But kids aren’t dying from it.”

“Not really. But kids are getting it, and they can carry it, and we’re no spring chickens.”

Mary smiled, the first he’d seen in a while. “Speak for yourself, John.”

John smirked and shifted to looking at Rosie’s paintings. Blobs with legs adorned the pages in a rainbow of colours. “I’m just saying. Let’s not go out more than we have to. Keep our hands clean. Don’t touch our faces.”

“I was a nurse once. I know how to keep clean,” Mary said. 

John grimaced, but said nothing. Mary worked now as a receptionist for a dentist. He flat out refused to stay with her if she went back to nursing on a faked degree. She loathed the receptionist job but hadn’t looked for anything else. He didn’t encourage her to look, giving her free reign on what she wanted to do professionally, so long as it stayed within the legal realms of the law. 

The feeling she resented him for it persisted, though. 

He pressed another kiss to the top of Rosie’s head, and walked down the hallway to his home office to avoid the sudden, stifling air of the kitchen. 

* * *

After dinner and Rosie’s bedtime routine, Mary opted to watch her programmes in the bedroom with a glass of wine. John stayed on the sofa in the lounge with a beer in one hand, his cell phone in the other. He'd shoved the embroidered pillows to the side. Beige carpeted the floor. The furniture was sort of bland and the walls were painted white. It was all so plain, like living in a bowl of bread dough. He'd sometimes thought of suggesting to Mary that they use a patterned wallpaper, or put hardwood flooring down and purchase a lovely old persian rug for the floor. The most exciting room in the house was Rosie's, with its painted night sky and army of stuffed animals, but he couldn't very well tell Mary that. The feeling persisted that part of Mary's bland choices had to do with her current disguise as Mary Watson née Morstan. It wasn't something he liked to dwell on, so he texted Sherlock. 

_**Sent** _

_Any cases on?_

_**Received** _

_Just one. For an old friend. - SH_

John frowned, pensive. Sherlock didn’t have friends. Well, he did. Begrudgingly, in some ways. Like Lestrade and Molly and Mrs. Hudson. And John, of course.

**_Sent_ **

_Who?_

**_Received_ **

_His name is Victor Trevor. We were at uni together. - SH_

Oh. Odd. How had Sherlock had a friend from so long ago that he never mentioned? John’d met Sebastian Wilkes who was a slimy bastard, but no one else from Sherlock’s past had ever shown up in the years they’d known one another. 

And they were supposed to be best friends.

_Well, he hardly knows how to be a best friend._

_You’re not exactly the chummy type either, and you know he takes his friendship cues from you._

John’s curiosity unfurled like the fronds of spring ferns. Green. He typed out a message with quick-moving thumbs.

_**Sent** _

_What’s the case? Anything I can do?_

_**Received** _

_I’ll let you know if there is. - SH_

Summarily dismissed. John frowned harder. Bit his lip. Thought about texting. Didn’t.

He strolled into his office with his beer and grabbed his laptop from the desk. Brought it out to the sofa. Opened it. Typed “Victor Trevor” into the search bar. 

The first thing he noticed about Victor Trevor was that the man was gorgeous. Tall, with dark skin and a bright white smile. Deep, dark eyes like pitch. A trimmed mustache and beard that squared his jaw and enhanced his handsome, distinguished look. He was dressed in a business suit that fit his fit frame like a glove. His frame was fit. He was fit.

John sighed and took a swig of his beer. _Wonder if the case has anything to do with his business._ He owned a small chain of restaurants in north London. John googled the restaurant’s name and found nothing about it in the news, aside from the opening and some reviews. The reviews were all positive.

Okay, so Sherlock was helping out an “old friend” and this friend ran a successful restaurant chain. Probably another posh twat like Wilkes.

He didn’t have anything more than that. Even staring at the impossibly handsome face of Victor Trevor was giving him nothing. Sherlock would take one glance at the photo and deduce at least ten things about his life. John could only guess that he had money. 

Oh, wait. No ring on the finger.

So Victor Trevor wasn’t married either. Could be single. Could be divorced. 

John glanced toward the mouth of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Not a sound from Mary. Not even the quiet burble of her programme. 

He put his laptop on the coffee table and turned the telly on. Dissatisfaction roiled deep in his belly as the telly droned. He didn’t hear a word of it.

* * *

John used his key to open the door to 221B. It'd been a week since he’d last seen Sherlock.

As he walked up the steps and the seventh creaked, the voices in the flat paused. Sherlock’s deep rumble started again and was joined by a puff of laughter. John continued up onto the landing and headed to the lounge, where they normally saw clients. 

In his chair was none other than Victor Trevor.

“Oh.” John blinked. Victor stood, and of course he was bloody tall. Taller than Sherlock or Mycroft, by at least two or three inches. “Hello, I’m Doctor John Watson.”

“Victor Trevor.” They shook hands. Victor Trevor had a firm grip with a large hand that engulfed John’s, and his voice was like liquid smoke moving through the air. John kept his chin tilted and his shoulders back as he assessed the man. 

“Sherlock’s old friend then?” John said.

Victor’s grin was astonishing, with wonderfully straight teeth that he obviously whitened. Against the smooth darkness of his skin, they were blinding. “Is that what he calls me now?” Victor swung toward Sherlock, still grinning, his hands on his hips. “Sherl, you wound me. I would have said we were more than that.”

_Sherl._

_Jesus. Was this the pet name from all of Sherlock’s…_

_Sherlock’s what?_

_More than that._

John peered at Sherlock’s expression. He was bent over his phone, silhouetted by the window. Dressed impeccably in one of his suits, sans dressing gown. His hair was gelled and curled around the edges of his face like a painted cherub on the ceiling of some great chapel. The impenetrable visage was illuminated by the glow of his phone.

Victor looked back at John and shrugged. “So John. I’ve read your blog. It’s been wonderful to see Sherlock apply that big brain of his to helping lesser people.”

John had to chew on the term ‘lesser people’ for a second before responding. “It’s been a privilege,” he said, glancing over at Sherlock again, He thought he saw a twitch of Sherlock’s lips. “So, you’ve brought us a case then?” _There. Us. Suck on it, tall, dark, and handsome._

“I think someone may be stealing from me. Thought I’d ask ‘an old friend’ to help out.” Victor tossed another look at Sherlock. Sherlock dropped his arms to his sides. The smile he gave Victor almost stole John’s breath. Even more when Sherlock winked and spread his hands as if in supplication. 

“Forgive me, Victor. I was not exactly straightforward with my colleague as to the nature of our relationship. It was long ago and I no longer allow such distractions.”

John winced at ‘colleague.’ Sherlock remembered that? _Wait, relationship?_

Victor laughed, long and throaty as he threw himself down in John’s chair. “You keep telling yourself that.” The look he gave Sherlock was predatory, filled with obvious longing as he swept his eyes over the length of Sherlock's body.

John had seen Sherlock brush off flirty types before. Only here, this time, the smile stayed on Sherlock's face as he locked eyes with Victor, and John was somehow superfluous. As he was once before. With Irene. Perhaps Janine. Definitely Irene. 

John sucked in the flesh of one cheek as he ripped his eyes away. “Well, it’s all fine.” Knowing Sherlock would remember that first night they ate together.

Or rather, John ate.

Sherlock snapped his eyes to his. “John. How are Mary and Rosie?” He was himself again. Hands at his sides. Body taut like a bowstring. Solicitous of the people in John’s life. Sherlock grabbed his violin before John answered and started fiddling with it. Continuous, powerful kinetic energy encapsulated by bone and muscle and miles of ivory skin.

_Shit._

“Fine,” he said. It was his perfunctory answer. Sherlock came over now and again to visit, and sometimes John brought Rosie to visit Sherlock. For the most part, Mary wasn’t invited on cases. Something which suited John just fine, especially with how buddy-buddy they could be, even after she maimed the detective.

Victor shot him a look. “Wife and child?”

“Yeah,” John said.

“Lovely. I always thought it would be nice to adopt a few tykes.”

Sherlock grinned at him - that grin. Not a sham grin. A real one, the kind he usually saved for John. “Like you’d ever settle long enough to even wait for the adoption agency to drop off the poor child that would be stuck with you.”

Victor barked a laugh. “I’d get a damn good au pair at least, wouldn’t I?”

Sherlock chuckled. John began to wonder if there actually was a case at all. Sherlock didn’t usually act so...at ease if there was a case on.

Not to mention that with COVID-19 on the rise, he balked at the idea of Sherlock out among the rabble, investigating.

He crossed his arms. “Well, um...you’ve been paying attention to the news reports right?” 

“Hm. Seen an interesting murder? I’m sure I would have noticed if there was one requiring my expertise.”

“No, I mean about the coronavirus. Cases are rising in Britain. You really shouldn’t stand too close to people, and make sure you wash your hands -”

Victor laughed again. “My word, Sherlock, I am glad to know that you have so many to mother you.” He looked back over at John - _while sitting in John’s chair_ \- and his eyes danced. “I used to worry about this bloke, thought he wouldn’t even see thirty.”

“And now I’m practically forty,” Sherlock said and struck the bow over the strings for a single note. “John has made sure of it, despite my efforts to the contrary.” He smiled at John in a way that made John feel grateful. _Breathe easy._

“In retrospect, you always did seem to have nine lives,” Victor mused. “Remarkable.” He looked as if he wanted to eat Sherlock, and Sherlock - he smiled at Victor and dropped his eyes to his violin. John could swear his cheeks pinked.

Anger moved through him like a river overrunning its banks, pushing mud and rocks and detritus into the forms and figures of living trees and bodies and sweeping away houses and livestock. He clenched one fist, relaxed it, moved both hands to the pockets of his jacket. Ran his tongue over his teeth.

“Yeah, well, I see you don’t need me here,” he said, almost too loudly. “I’ll just head home. To Rosie. And Mary. Dinner, you know.”

Sherlock looked perplexed. John tried not to squirm under the piercing gaze and turned to Victor. “Nice meeting you, mate.”

“A pleasure, Doctor Watson,” Victor said and stood to shake his hand. John thought again of COVID-19 and remembered he had a travel size bottle of hand sanitiser in his pocket. 

“Sherlock, text you later.”

“Later,” Sherlock said. John could feel the weight of his eyes on him as he left.

He almost ran down the steps and out the door. His heart thumped against its bone cage and his ears were as hot as a sunburn. 

_Christ, you could have kept your cool better than that._

Oh, but how he wanted to punch Victor Trevor’s perfect teeth in, though he could barely say why. Too much of the oily smile that Sebastian Wilkes had. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

 _Probably Mary,_ he thought as his eyes rolled and he pulled his phone out.

It was the surgery.

“Doctor Watson,” he said.

“John, hi. This is Rebecca.” Doctor Rebecca Baker was a supreme professional, and John admired her work ethic. “I’m afraid to inform you that one of the nurses here has tested positive for COVID-19. And what’s more, I’m afraid I need to ask you and your family to self-isolate for two weeks.”

John paused in his walk. “You’re serious?”

“I know. It’s...it’s going to hurt us in a major way to isolate so many staff. But, we have to.”

"I’ve been with my family -”

“Is anyone in your family a member of one of the identified vulnerable populations?”

“No.”

“Then you’re probably fine. I, um, god John, you know, this is unprecedented. But I have to ask you to please do this. For two weeks. Have your wife inform her job. I’d be happy to write a letter if she needs one.” Her exhale through the phone was long and frustrated. “I’m not really asking you, John. It’s mandatory.”

“Holy christ. And - people I’ve visited? I’ve just come from a friend’s -”

“Ask them to isolate in their place as well.”

“Okay. Okay. Thank you, Rebecca. Doctor Baker. Um, two weeks?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I need to make some other calls now.”

“Yeah. Good luck with that.”

He could hear her shuffling through papers. No doubt she was sitting at her desk, checking the rotas of who had worked with who, and came into contact with the infected. He almost asked who the infected was. “Not my best day of work, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks.”

“No need. Just get home if you’re not already. Make sure you have enough food for two weeks.”

“Yeah, yeah.” His mind spun like a tilt-a-whirl. 

“Bye.”

She hung up before he could respond.

He stared down at his phone and tried to remember if he touched anything in Sherlock’s flat.

Of course. He shook Victor’s hand.

And if Victor touched Sherlock -

His stomach turned at the thought of that smug arsehole touching Sherlock. As if he’d just stepped off the tilt-a-whirl. 

He typed out a message.

_**Sent** _

_I’ve been in touch with a person confirmed for COVID-19._

_Please be sure Victor washes his hands and anything he’s touched in the flat._

_Have him isolate in his home. You need to do the same._

**_Received_ **

_Preposterous. You are finicky about cleaning up after finishing at work. - SH_

_**Sent** _

_Do it. Please._

_**Received** _

_The case, John! - SH_

_**Sent** _

_Sherlock this is a pandemic, and people are dying._

A light rain started, cold on the nape of his neck. It was moments before his phone lit up again.

_**Received** _

_Very well. We’ve decided to isolate and work on the case from here._

The muscle in John’s jaw grew tight. Victor and Sherlock. Victor ‘more than friends’ Trevor isolated with Sherlock for two weeks. Who knows what doors might open, what flames might get fanned.

Well, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He had to go home and tell Mary.

And prepare for isolation with his family.

For two weeks.

Easy.

Right?

John inhaled. Exhaled. Soldiered on. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_Day 3 of Isolation_

John stared out the window onto the rough brick of the house next door. A cold grey rain fell between them, pebble-heavy drops forming murky brown puddles. All the houses stood so close together. Everything was too close. The walls of the kitchen seemed to somehow press an unrelenting gaze upon him despite the neutral palette - offensive anyway, somehow. Rosie’s complaints rattled him but he kept a lid on his temper. Mary...was Mary.

He went out for a walk around the garden at least twice per day. Watched the brown sparrows chirping from the trees. Nest building on its way. The little chaps seemed unusually cheery, blissfully unaware of the pandemic impacting bipedal mammals. So far he’d not experienced any of the symptoms, but there was still time. 

Sherlock hadn’t spoken to him, but neither had John texted him. He was likely busy on the case, entertaining Victor Trevor anyhow.

He gripped the edge of the counter until his fingers ached. 

_Day 4 of Isolation_

“Why don’t you just text him already? Honestly, you two,” Mary said in her breezy, chiding way. She knitted on the sofa as some BBC drama played out on the telly. John wasn’t even sure what the plot was. 

“Sorry?”

“I’m just saying, you’ve been in a sulk, and it’s not just anxiety over this whole having to stay inside all the time thing. You look at your phone like it’s going to bite you.” She smirked at him in that knowing way that he used to find endearing. “He can’t bite you through the phone.”

“I’m not - I’m not waiting around to hear from Sherlock Holmes,” he groused, his mood growing more foul with Mary having caught him out.

She released a loud and long sigh. “Honestly, John, you’re fooling no one. Just text him already.”

John narrowed his eyes at the television. “Mary, leave it.”

“Did you two have a bit of a domestic?” Her tone was teasing.

He didn’t answer. Just picked up his phone and stabbed the buttons with his thumbs.

**_Sent_ **

_Hi._

“Happy?” he said to his wife, who tutted him and looked back down at her knitting. “What is it? A scarf?”

“I’ve done enough scarves. And hats. And mittens. I’m going to attempt a sweater.”

“For Rosie?”

A smile lingered on her face. “Nope.”

John didn’t feel like asking her any questions. He was still trying to distract himself from thinking about Sherlock. And Victor. His eyes drifted from the screen to the walls. Pictures of a smiling Rosie. Their wedding day photo framed and hanging in prominence on one wall. Happier times, as confusing as they were for John at the time. He'd made peace with his choices. Was still making peace with his choices. It was a process, right? Somewhere over the years the pain and anger had dulled, and in its place had been laughter and a sense of _this is what it is, and what is is is fine. All fine._

After a moment, Mary hummed.

“Yeah?” John said.

“Funny, he usually responds to your texts quicker than that.”

 _Damn._ “I’m sure he’s just busy. He’s got a case that he can work on from the flat.”

“Oh? You didn’t say that,” she said. “What is it?”

“For an old friend of his.”

She dropped her knitting into her lap. “Sherlock? Sherlock has an old friend?”

A sour sensation seeped into his stomach. _Why wouldn’t Sherlock have an old friend? He wasn’t an entirely friendless person. Even Mary had been his friend once._

“Yeah, a Victor Trevor. They went to uni together,” he said, strangely possessed with the impulse to defend Sherlock’s ability to make and keep friends. “Met him the other day. Nice bloke.”

“You didn’t say,” she said.

 _As if I have to tell you everything? As if you didn’t or don’t have your own secrets?_ He balled his fist on the arm of his chair. This old anger, he swore he would let it lie. Then this pandemic had thrown him for a loop, and he was locked down with his wife, and all the circling thoughts in his head were stirring up old issues that he’d thought gone. Like hikers walking over the den of a bear; what was once dormant was awakened now, and voracious.

He had to push it back, force it back into the shadows, back into the limitless, innocuous sense of torpor. 

With a lift of one shoulder, he said, “Didn’t seem that important.”

Mary scoffed, her face beaming with an incredulous grin. “John. The man is practically the most unsociable person we know, with the exception of your dear old Major Sholto.”

The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled at her tone. “Well, it seems he’s more sociable than we thought.” He set his chin on his fist. _My dear old Major Sholto?_

He used to be dazzled by Mary. She was clever, far more clever than him. She could argue circles around him which tied him into a fierce knot, but he forgave her. And himself. She, Sherlock, Sholto. They commanded attention. He ran after them like some loyal dog.

The memory of Mary and Sherlock implying that very thing stung him. He shifted in his seat to soothe the ache.

He preferred the way things were now, where he and Sherlock went on cases while Mary watched over Rosie. It might seem a bit sexist, but he belonged at Sherlock’s side, and he didn’t do it nearly as much as he liked. Instead, he focused on building his practice. Providing for his family. Meeting his need for a thrill by doing a couple cases a week, or if there was no case, sitting up watching bad telly and eating calorie-dense takeaway. 

Mary had swore to him that she wanted nothing to do with her old, dangerous life. That what she wanted more than anything was to be his wife and be a good mother to Rosie. A chance at a normal life. In some ways, it seemed a waste of her talents. It was unfair of him to continue living on that edge while he asked her to remain...inert. Yet, he was too selfish to remove himself from the cases. Some wild part of him sang like a feral dog when the hunt was on, when the danger was near. Made life worth living. She didn't seem to resent him for it, but when he thought about it, his nerves vibrated beneath his skin like fireflies trapped in a jar.

He assured himself Sherlock would get himself bloody killed if it weren’t for him. Which he’d said to her once, and her response was, “He lived to his thirties without you, John. Why on earth do you think he isn’t capable enough without you?” To which John gave her the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening.

He remembered Victor Trevor, sitting in their old lounge, eating Sherlock up with a ravenous gaze. _“I used to worry about this bloke; thought he wouldn’t even see thirty.”_

“What’s he like?”

“Hm?” 

“This Victor Trevor. What’s he like?”

“I didn’t spend much time with him. You’d have to ask Sherlock.” The telly droned. Some detective drama in some quaint, English village. Sherlock would have all sorts of caustic remarks for it if he were there. 

“And did you meet him at Baker Street?”

“Is this an interrogation?” John said.

Mary narrowed her eyes. “John, I’m just trying to be interested in your life here.”

“What does Victor Trevor have to do with my life? I met him at Sherlock’s, they’re quarantined there and we’re quarantined here! End of story!” The volume of his voice raised to a near shout. Immediately, he wished it hadn’t. And that he hadn’t said those words. He groaned and covered his eyes with one hand.

When he uncovered his eyes and looked at her, she stared at him with an inscrutable expression. “I see,” she said, her voice icy.

“I don’t mean - here is where I belong,” he said. “I’m just a little stir-crazy, is all.”

“It’s only been four days,” she said.

Four days. 

The clicking of her knitting needles started up again. A dead body lay on the floor on the telly. 

John’s phone stayed silent.

_Day 5 of Quarantine_

John fiddled with his phone and put it down. He’d decided to spend some time going through his reading pile, but his phone drew his attention over and over and over. 

Sherlock hadn’t returned his text. Mary wasn’t exactly right. Sherlock would ignore John’s texts if he was mid-case or asleep, and he slept at odd hours. But an entire day had passed.

For some reason, it brought to mind those few days with Irene. Aristocratic, intelligent, beautiful. She had everything, and while she wasn’t John’s cup of tea, she’d been Sherlock’s. Why had he wanted her phone, after all? He kept mementos from every case, but he was turned about by her in ways that John had never seen. 

He’d been certain that Sherlock wasn’t the type to date or have sex, and yet, and yet… 

It irked him to think that his best friend had never shared a word about past relationships, friendly or otherwise. While Sherlock flayed everyone else to the core and saw their secrets, he kept his own close at heart, or head. Stuck somewhere in his bloody Mind Palace. 

John had so few secrets from Sherlock. Sholto being one of them, though he could never quite say why he kept Sholto a secret. He wasn’t a secret, so much as someone John never mentioned. To Sherlock. The awkwardness of that situation still sat in his gut, an uncomfortable squirm of recognition that he had never meant for the two to meet. When he’d seen Sholto at his wedding, his brain clouded over with a mixture of joy and panic. The shock that he was present was accompanied by a gut-deep fear that Sherlock certainly wouldn’t miss him, and would know what he meant to John. And then - then all of those declarations of “I’m not gay!” would come into question - _again_ \- and he’d be exposed like a negative to light before it’s ready. Some part of him never to be recaptured in the comfort of shadows. 

Instead, Sherlock made some stupid comment about commanding officers and left the sexual identity issues unspoken. Which was just like him. Nosy in everything else, but respectful just for the second where maybe John didn’t want him to be -

What the fuck was he saying?

Sherlock couldn’t know. That was the whole point. And if Sherlock didn’t know, then Mary didn’t know, and John would never have to know, because he was here in this house with its garden and his wife and their daughter, and that was the end of it. His success; his achievement. A life of heteronormative achievements. He could tell his parents to go fuck themselves if they were still alive.

_Day 6 of Isolation_

He tapped his foot on the floor as he sat in the chair of his home office. A warm, honey-brown colour stained the cheap imitation wood of his desk. Nothing like the desk that he'd claimed while living at 221B. This was an ersatz office, just a place he went for some peace and quiet. The surgery was more conducive to paperwork. Here, he pretended to work at his laptop on administrative work, when really, he was likely writing blog posts or playing solitaire. A single green fern sat on his desk, along with medical textbooks and random bills and notes from Rosie’s nursery. Mary had managed to keep the fern alive, after taking over for him when he killed several of his other potted plants. She'd insisted on their existence "for a bit of colour." 

He stared again at his phone. Reread the message he'd just sent.

_So, how’s the case?_

A moment later, his phone buzzed.

_Solved it of course. - SH_

John smiled as his chest bloomed with relief. Sherlock was talking to him.

_And you’ve stayed inside?_

_Yes, mother. - SH_

John wondered if he should ask about Victor. He typed out a message, erased it, let his fingers dance around the edge of the letters, ignored the nervous tingle in his stomach. Licked his lips, rubbed them with his fingers, and stared at the ceiling.

_How are Mary and Rosie? - SH_

Always the question. 

_Fine. We’re all going crazy. A bit cooped up. Shot any walls yet?_

_No gun. Mycroft removed them all. - SH_

John tried to think of other things to say and came up empty. 

It was telling that he couldn’t bring himself to ask about Victor, when Mary and his daughter were always in Sherlock’s thoughts, it seemed.

“Daddy? Will you do the puzzle with me?” Rosie held up a puzzle box with the picture of a cartoon sloth hanging from a limb. 

“Yes, daddy would love to do a puzzle with you.” He followed her out to the lounge floor. The low murmur of Mary’s voice could be heard in the kitchen. 

They laid the large pieces out across the rug. “Well, he’s a cheeky sloth, ain't he?”

Rosie smiled, which pulled an answering smile from his face. They began sliding matching pieces together.

Snippets of Mary’s conversation slipped over them. Rosie, bent over the puzzle with the look of concentration on her face, seemed to ignore it. But John tilted his head, and slid closer to the kitchen doorway.

“I don’t honestly know. He cares, I think, but to be honest, I feel like I married a different man.”

Nerves jangled through him. 

“Yeah. It’s not the same. He’s not the same. I feel like I’m just watching him fade away into this little old man. The only time I see him smile is for Rosie, or for you-know-who.”

John clenched his jaw. The skin behind his ears flushed with heat while cold flashed over his back.

_Little old man._

He moved closer to Rosie and the puzzle, his lips twisted into a grimace. 

Mary was disappointed in him. 

A strange sense of relief washed through him like sun pouring over pavement on a cold day. He should have been upset or insulted, ready to confront her, but he wasn’t. The relief was followed by the cottony feeling of numbness; an inertia that slid through him like molasses. The relief lay low, a perilous conclusion to a question he didn't even know he had. 

Well, it wasn’t as if the precedent for disappointment wasn’t there in the relationship. He hadn’t shot any of her friends or hid a background as someone who murdered people for money, so it wasn’t as if he was in the wrong here. Maybe he’d slowly bore her to death in revenge, and wasn't that the kicker? 

He hadn't realized he'd fallen out of love with his wife. And he had no one to blame anymore but himself. Sometimes he still got angry at Sherlock. Sometimes he got angry at Mary. Overall, he was most angry with himself. It became a welcome feeling in the fog of numbness.

Mary walked in, breaking him from the chain of thoughts. “Oh. John. Playing with Rosie I see.”

John sent her a wide smile, wondering if she could detect a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Yup. Playing with Rosie.”

She gave a slow nod, scrutinising him. He kept his face as blank and as pleasant as he could, though no doubt she would suspect something. She was too clever by half. 

“Good. She’s been waiting for you to come out of your office to play.”

John gave a shrug of his shoulders and returned to the puzzle, pressing one piece of a sloth leg to another. 

Her steps led out of the room.

The days had gone like that, he realized. Splitting the making of meals, passing each other in the house like ships at sea. They swapped off on time with Rosie without pressing for “family time.” Rosie didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. This was the norm for her, wasn't it? When she was home, she either played with one parent or another, or by herself. Never the three of them together. How had he not seen that before?

Being in quarantine squished routine habits onto a glass slide and placed them beneath a microscope. The connection between him and Mary had grown tenuous, tied only to this house and this child. A shared history, for sure, but not a sparkling one. 

John sighed and pulled out his phone as he propped his back against the sofa.

_I’m so bored. I’m beginning to sound like you in my head._

_It took your brain six days to get bored? How delightful to have such a simple mind. I almost envy you. - SH_

_Don’t be such a berk. I’m commiserating here._

_I’m surprised you’ve lasted as long as you have in the suburbs. - SH_

Was there something more to that statement? It was almost a compliment, but did he mean for merely the period of this quarantine, or was he making a general statement?

Again, Victor Trevor crept into his thoughts.

_How’s Victor?_

_Well. - SH_

Tired of beating around the bush, John decided to just go for it. 

_So you and he used to date?_

He’d imagined Sherlock’s answer to this question. Or a load of possible answers: ‘Oh yes, John, he and I fucked rather often,’ or ‘John, you know I hold reason in the highest regard, and sex interferes with reason, therefore I have no use for it. Or, ‘John, such an impertinent question. But yes, there was a time I investigated romantic entanglement, and Victor Trevor was the subject of my investigation. I have since decided to go without it.’

John bit his lip as he thought to himself that his preferred answer was definitely not the first one.

Why though? To what end?

He’d gone around declaring his lack of interest in men enough before the fall, and had since married a woman.

But Sherlock?

God, Sherlock. 

John hit his head against the front of the sofa.

“Daddy! I did it!”

“You did! Daddy’s so proud!” He grabbed Rosie and kissed her cheek.

“No daddy!” She pushed him away. “Mummy has to see.”

“Right. Go tell your mum.”

She hopped toward the kitchen like a kangaroo, her ponytail bobbing behind her.

John stared down at his phone.

Sherlock had answered.

_Yes. - SH_


	3. Chapter 3

_ Day 8 of Quarantine _

Mary knew about the woman. The seemingly harmless text flirtations with the woman from the bus. 

Not harmless at all, of course. 

The painful conversation happened after they brought her back. Hashed everything out.  Prickly shame weighed stone-heavy on him and so he swore to fix things. They’d promised to do better by each other and to be the best parents they could be to Rosie. He apologized for the affair. She apologized for leaving, and for concealing her past. 

During one of the most excruciating bits of that conversation, Mary said something that gnawed at him still sometimes. She’d said, “Frankly, I’m not surprised you felt the need to prove your masculinity.” As if she agreed he needed to prove his manhood. And yes, that cute girl had made him feel virile, wanted, and even a little powerful. While Mary and Sherlock were haring around like best chums, he had a secret that neither of them deduced. 

Well, so he thought. 

It was nice to have that illusion of normal, even if it was brief and limited. With somebody who might appreciate him without a history of traumatic complications. Even if she wasn’t what he wanted in the end. He wasn’t as unfeeling as his wife, or as Sherlock. 

Was Sherlock ever even lonely? When he came back could he stand being in 221B day and day out by himself? What if he decided to pick things back up with Victor Trevor?

That thought sent him into a tailspin of furious cleaning in his office. He organized the books on their shelves, dusted the windowsills and the blinds, and hoovered the rug. His thoughts were subsumed with Sherlock, bloody Sherlock who, like Sholto, made him question the rock-solid person he was. Safe in his heterosexuality, safe in his little house with his family. No one knew of his late-night teen fumblings with one of his rugby mates. That guy had been beat into a pulp and lived as a vegetable at his parents’ house until he died some years later. That could have been John at some point if his dad had ever caught him. 

John squeezed his hands around the handle of the vacuum cleaner. Will had been a good friend, and those drunken gropes the result of crossed wires. It still left him a mixed bag of confusion and guilt. Deeper than that, he’d find the sharpness of fear, like forgotten glass that’s broken at the bottom of a thin plastic rubbish bag - the bite from the slivered edge sudden and painful.

Followed closely by grief. Will didn’t deserve that end.

Sholto had been safe. A commanding officer. Not that it didn’t ever happen between ranks in the army, but both John and Sholto were too honourable to cross the line, so John had nursed his crush from a distance. It probably came off as hero worship to Mary and to anyone else he talked to. 

“You’re going nuts,” Mary’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He realized he’d been standing in the middle of the room, staring up at a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling, his hands white-knuckled around the vacuum cleaner’s handle.

“Cobwebs,” he said.

Mary smirked as she folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Right. Anything you’d like to talk about?”

“I’m…” He looked around him, grasping, fumbling. Worried. “A little stir-crazy, yeah. This office needed a good cleaning anyway.”

“It’s really bothering you that he’s stuck there with his friend, isn’t it? You’re still his best friend, John. No one can quite tolerate him for long periods of time like you can.”

Needled, John said, “Well, that’s not quite true. He knew Victor in uni.” He was conflicted. Tell Mary that Victor and Sherlock used to date and defend his friend to her, or leave that information out and avoid her skewering the potential truth.

He  _ was _ jealous of their time together. And it wasn’t good to be jealous of your mate’s time with an old boyfriend while you were spending time with your family.

“Yeah, but how well did Victor know him? Knowing someone in uni isn’t quite the same as being trapped in the same flat as them for two weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor threw himself out the window.” She stepped into the room and pressed her fingers into the soil of the fern. 

John still clutched the handle of the vacuum as if it was his lifeline. Breathing. Clammy hand. Taut posture. She wasn’t looking at him, so he could say the words. Safely. She wouldn’t see how he held himself together with a frayed thread. “They used to date, so I’d say he knows pretty well what he’s getting into.”

Mary’s head whipped around. “Date?”

Spotted. Though John gave a little laugh. Not even Mary had seen that coming, and that gave him some small sense of relief. “Yeah. Can you believe it? Sherlock Holmes and an old flame.”

Her eyes swept over him. It got under his skin like a splinter and he waited for her to speak, awaited to see what cutting observation she would make.

“Well, that explains everything,” she said as she wiped her fingers with her other hand and started to leave the room.

“What do you mean by that?” The urge to follow her was overwhelming - blood pumping, sweat prickling on his neck.  _ God, would a screaming match feel good right now. _

Instead, he snatched the stupid little green fern from his desk and pitched it across the room, like snapping a rubber band with that satisfying  _ thwack. _

The pot smashed to pieces. Soil burst in a black cloud over his pale cream, just hoovered carpet. 

A laugh bubbled from this throat. Cracked. Thin. Wheezy. He looked to the door. Mary didn’t even come to check on him. Rosie was on the other side of the house the last he knew. Just as well she didn’t see him like this.

He picked up the ceramic shards with care and deposited them in the rubbish bin below his desk. He went back for the plant, feeling a little bad about potentially having killed it when Mary had been keeping it alive for him. As he went for it, he noticed it seemed a little odd. Like it didn’t have a root system. His fingers closed around a frond. Hard. Rubbery.

It wasn’t real.

John sank down to his arse on the floor. He held the plastic fern up in front of his face. Fake. All along, it was fake.

_ You see but do not observe,  _ his inner Sherlock mocked.

_ Thanks, arsehole. _

Jesus fucking Christ. How long was she going to care for a plastic plant on his desk? She’d even checked the soil moisture, just now, in front of him! How the hell had he never noticed that the damn thing was fake? 

The symbolism was almost too much. He palmed his face with his other hand, more thin laughter escaping his dry lips.

* * *

After dinner, Mary opened a bottle of white wine. Instead of her customary single glass, John noticed she’d had three between walking to the bedroom and the kitchen. He’d been watching the rerun of a footie game on the telly, trying to lose himself in the action on the screen.

Bringing back the empty glass to the kitchen, she didn’t refill. Instead, she flopped down on the sofa beside John. She snuggled into his side and nuzzled his neck. He shifted, keeping his eyes on the screen. Her hand traveled over one thigh and cupped his flaccid penis.

“Not in the mood,” he said. The green plastic plant kept dancing before him in his mind’s eye. He’d shut the thing into his desk drawer and hoovered up the loose soil. 

“You’re never in the mood,” Mary slurred. “Do you need viagra, maybe? You are a doctor you know. You could get a prescription.”

John rose from the sofa, untangling himself from her arms. “The only time you’re ever interested is when you’re drunk.”

Mary stood in a huff. “Because this is hard, John! You’re _ never _ interested, and the rejection is difficult to handle after a while.”

A little curl of regret and guilt formed in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. Asking her about the plant wasn’t going to get him anywhere at this point.

“Well, don’t be. I’m sure you and your hand are getting along well. I’ll make do.” She stalked off toward the bedroom.

John slept on the sofa every night thereafter.

_ Day 10 of Quarantine _

With Rosie in bed, John fired off another text to Sherlock. After a few moments and no reply, he sighed and threw his phone down on the sofa beside him. His pillow and his blankets were folded at the opposite end. He grabbed the remote, readying himself for a night of telly until he fell asleep. Wondering what Victor and Sherlock were doing at the time. In bed together? On the sofa? Did Victor watch telly or was he too snobby for it?

“You know why it bothers you, don’t you?”

His stomach lurched as his neck tingled. He’d been promising himself to try harder with Mary. Once the quarantine was over and he could return to work, he was certain things would go back the way they were. Like the plastic plant. The near-perfect representation of a lush fern with its spray of intricate fronds. 

“It’s because you thought Sherlock was untouchable. You thought no one would have him, and he would have no one, so you could be his best friend, and have your wife, and no one would know.”

Ice shot through his veins like a crystalline flame - so cold it burned. He ripped his eyes away from the telly and faced her. 

Mary’s expression was amused. A glass of wine dangled from her fingers. She took a sip, and waited for him. Smug.

“No one would know what?” He knew he shouldn’t rise to her bait, but he wanted to squeeze the answers from her, like squeezing all the air out of someone’s throat. 

“That if he wanted you and if he said so, you’d be his in an instant.”

He growled: “I’m not -”

“Stop it, John. This is us. This is me.” She took another sip and John almost expected her to pull out a cigarette and light it, like some movie villain who’d been the bad guy all along, and no one knew.

Close enough.

“You love him. You can’t have him in the way you’d like, but that was okay when there was no one else. But now there’s someone else, and it’s eating away at you, isn’t it?”

“Mary -”

“Don’t bother denying it. I know you.”

Exhaustion engulfed him. Fighting her just didn’t seem worth it. With all the shit behind them, this was just par for the course, wasn’t it? He leaned his head back and turned on the television.

“You’ve been watering a plastic plant,” he said.

“And don’t I know it.” He heard her huff as she walked toward the bedroom.

* * *

_ Day 11 of Quarantine _

“Daddy?” The whisper came from right beside his ear. He opened his eyes to see the round, cherubic face of his daughter holding her stuffed elephant. “I want to watch cartoons.”

“Okay, Honeybee, why don’t you get in under the blanket with Daddy?”

She smiled and crawled onto the sofa, curling up next to him as he grabbed the remote and flipped on the telly.

“You used to smile at me like that,” Mary said from the mouth of the hallway.

John didn’t say anything.

“You still smile like that at Sherlock.”

John kept his body still, though something beneath the skin stretched and screamed and moved as if waiting for the epidermal layers to split and spall. Rosie lay her head on his arm. 

“Not in front of Rosie,” he said through his teeth.

  
  


_ Day 12 of Quarantine _

John awoke from a dream where Victor Trevor was having sex with Sherlock Holmes.

It wasn’t explicit. Just a tangle of limbs beneath a blanket, two deep voices and frenzied gasps. John watched from the doorway of Sherlock’s room. The door slammed in his face. Mary laughed somewhere in the background.

When he looked around, he realized it was early.

Mary sat in the armchair, her feet tucked beneath her, eyes on him.

“Morning,” he grumbled. They’d been courteous, if cool, with one another.

“This isn’t working, is it. It hasn’t been working for a long time.”

John pursed his lips. He sat himself up and stretched out a crick in his neck. “I made a vow,” he said, unintentionally echoing the words of his best friend. “I’m here for you and for Rosie.”

“Don’t kid yourself, John.” Mary stared at him. Her face was much the same. Stark cheekbones, though not like Sherlock’s. Intelligent, piercing blue eyes edged with just a hint of sadness. He’d always thought Sherlock looked a bit reptilian, and now, staring at his wife, he realized she had a bit of that cold predatory stare as well. Beautiful, but dangerous. 

The two people who loved him most in the world.

“It would have worked out between us, I think. If it hadn’t been…”

_ If Sherlock hadn’t returned. _

“Would it have? We dated six months. We moved too fast,” he said. It was something neither of them had ever said out loud. They’d slotted together like two puzzle pieces. Right for each other. Creating a larger picture. The problem was each of them had warped under the cold dose of reality.

“You moved too fast. You were trying to forget your grief,” she snapped.

“You didn’t exactly discourage me.” He doesn’t mention Magnussen. The time she took flight and left him and Rosie behind. Would she have ever come back? 

She was never going to truly be and stay Mrs. Watson. Not if Sherlock hadn’t found her.

It’d worked out. Or, it should have worked out. It was his beautiful plan. This woman came into his life, accepted his grief and his anger, and the fact that he had this scar on his shoulder and a second, unseen one in his chest. She’d accepted all that about him, and she’d also done what she could to keep him alive. She kept him from being alone.

He was so alone. After the army. Before Sherlock. After Sherlock. Before Mary.

And now, even though he lived with his family, he was still somehow alone. And was only now recognizing it for what it was. 

Inhaling suddenly hurt.

“If you knew I was blinded by grief and moving us along too quickly, why did you agree to it?”

She stared down at the stretch of plush carpet between them. Under the ottoman lingered an old wine stain that never quite got removed, no matter what elbow grease went into scrubbing it. Crumbs beneath the coffee table from Rosie’s rabbit-shaped crackers. He remembered laying the carpet down when they moved in, never asking Mary how she afforded to buy the house on her own. Back when he thought she inherited a trust from her dead parents.

Were her parents really dead? Or alive somewhere in the United States?

“He was back, and I was afraid I’d lose you entirely,” she said. 

_ Probably shouldn’t have shot him, then. _

_Not fair._ _You said you’d forgiven her._ “Mary.” _What?_ What was he going to say? See a marriage counselor? They couldn’t talk about half of their problems to anyone else. The situations in their lives had too many national secrets and too much trauma. 

Mary stood, her dressing gown falling to her ankles. Her painted toes looked like drops of blood against white skin. “I don’t know what we do now. But these two weeks have shown me that it’s not going to work between us. This is not the life I wanted. I thought...I thought I could be Mrs. John Watson. But, there was never truly room for her, was there?”

John searched for something to say. They stood on an edge now, and it was precarious. He didn’t know what to say, or how to explain anything to her. How his thoughts were muddled and his feelings conflicted, and how he hated himself sometimes. “I...I always thought I’d have a wife.”

Her gaze was unwavering, eyes intensely blue. Shining like still ponds beneath a bright blue sky. “But then things changed.” 

“I guess they did,” he said.

Without averting her stare, she said, “Being married in name and not in our hearts hasn’t been the domesticity I wanted.”

John sucked in his lower lip. “What do you want?” His voice was hoarse, and his breathing shallow.

She folded her arms in front of her chest. The glimmer in her eyes was gone. “I’m filing for divorce. I’d like to sell the house. I won’t need your money, so don’t offer. I’ve accounts of my own.” The flatness in her voice put him on edge. John decided not to ask her about these other accounts, too afraid of having to manage the emotional consequences of the logical conclusion of how she’d been able to afford the place. “Joint custody of Rosie.”

“I’ll agree to that,” he said. It was like standing at the precipice of a cliff; only now she was taking the leap and she’d somehow taken the cliff with her and left him flailing in the open air. The sense of failure billowed through him like an icy wind and the fall seemed endless.

Like in old dreams of a dark figure falling from a hospital rooftop. 


	4. Chapter 4

A pall shadowed his last days of quarantine. Zombie-like, walking in a fugue enveloped in a dusky twilight or a grey dawn, he oscillated between the sofa, Rosie, and the usual human necessities of eating and ablutions and so on. When others had ever mentioned being divorced, he never thought twice about it. So they were divorced. Shit happens.

He had no idea how weighted the cloak of failure would feel once it settled on his shoulders. 

He’d taken the afternoon shift at the surgery, relieved to be out of the house. Cases of COVID-19 had become a serious problem, with more of the English population testing positive as it spread - and as tests became available. While Mary and he were courteous to one another, she’d made one snide remark this morning about him seeing Sherlock when social distancing was the big buzz phrase. He ignored her, ignored the pulse of anger - and fear - that constricted his breathing.

Her words -  _ if he wanted you and if he said so, you’d be his in an instant -  _ slid through his mind now and again, stealing what shallow breath he had in his lungs. If Sherlock was open to romance, would John even be able to handle it? Could he shrug off the heterosexual skin he’d worn as a shield his entire life? 

The thought wrapped around him like a vine, twining about his ribs and digging roots into his gut, churning up old turmoil and pressing him to his fears without mercy. 

_ Coward. _

It didn’t matter, he decided. With or without Sherlock, John needed to be his own man. About to undergo a divorce. Dwelling on the curious feelings he’d had as a youth, feelings he’d long locked away - averting his eyes from the arses of other men in the showers, shying away from flirtatious blokes, declaring “I’m not gay!” whenever someone assumed he and Sherlock were a couple - all of that didn’t matter at the moment. At the moment, he needed a new place, and he needed to reconcile himself to his new bachelorhood. 

Of course he was going to stop by and see Sherlock. The last time he’d gone this long without seeing his best friend, it’d been his honeymoon. Complicated feelings aside, it was natural for John to check in on him, and if he discovered some inkling of the situation between Sherlock and Victor, what of it?

And Sherlock? He was at the end of his two week period of isolation as well, and there was no way he was going to stay inside. John was hoping he’d sleep in, and that way John could catch him still at home. 

Face flaming for some unknowable reason, he turned the key and entered the foyer. 

John paused at the bottom steps. What if Victor was sleeping too? What if he and Sherlock were… No. He didn’t hear anything above. No telly. No voices. Unless they were in the bedroom. His lips pulled into a grimace as that sticky, spindly-legged feeling of jealousy wriggled through him. It was jealousy. He would own it. He hated when others had Sherlock’s attention, unless it was for a case. That was it. Though it was an ugly emotion, John decided to own it and move on. 

He’d put his hand on the handrail when footsteps sounded from above. When he looked up, it was to see Sherlock in his pyjamas, a dressing gown trailing off one shoulder. His face was as pale as moonstone with a greyish pallour, and his eyes seemed unfocused. The usual riot of curls was plastered to his head on one side, as if he’d been lying on it for some time.

“Sherlock?” John said.

“John?” His voice shook.

“Oh god,” John threw himself up the stairs. “Let’s lie you down.”

He was careful not to touch the doorknob, but he herded Sherlock to the sofa where a blanket lay in a crumple on the floor. “Jesus, Sherlock. You’re sick.”

“I’m okay, it’s just -”

“If you ‘it’s just transport’ me, I swear I’ll chin you.” John pointed to the sofa. “Lie down.”

Sherlock fell onto the sofa. A sheen of sweat glistened across his brow and his bared clavicles. John kneeled beside the sofa. “Tell me your symptoms.”

“Fever. Headache. Cough. Shortness of breath.”

“ _ Christ. _ ” He looked toward the bedroom. “Where’s Victor?”

“Who?”

“What do you mean who? Victor Trevor!”

“When the cough started, he left.”

“He left?” John exploded from his kneel on the carpet. “He’s carrying COVID-19 and you’re telling me he bloody left when you coughed?”

Sherlock answered with a dry cough. 

John rubbed his mouth with one hand and pulled out his cell phone.  _ Shit. Just touched my face. My mouth. God, have I touched anything else?  _

He stuck his phone back in his pocket. “I’m going to take your temperature. If it’s too high, you’re going to hospital.”

“No hospital,” Sherlock said. “I won’t do it.” He coughed again and drew in a deep breath.

“I’m also going to check your oxygen levels, and if they aren’t where I want them, you’re going to hospital.”

“How are you going to bloody check my oxygen levels? You haven’t a pulse oximeter.” Sherlock’s voice wasn’t it’s normal baritone, but his derision was loud and clear. 

“I’m calling Mycroft,” John said with no small amount of snark. “You stay there.”

Sherlock scowled and sank further into the cushions of the sofa. 

John retrieved the med kit from the bathroom as he dialed Mycroft.

Mycroft answered immediately.

“Yes, what can I do for you, Doctor Watson?”

“Your brother is exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. Refuses hospital, of course.”

A pause. “You need supplies.”

“An oximeter -”

“Doctor Watson, I am sending a team over right away. I have the necessary supplies in stock.”

John clenched his fist around the med kit. Of course in a countrywide shortage Mycroft Holmes would have the necessary supplies.

“Don’t be angry with me. I’ve always had the necessary medical supplies in stock. This isn’t my first pandemic and this one was easy to predict in today’s political climate.”

John wanted to ask what he meant by his first pandemic but Mycroft continued. “You’ll have the supplies you need within the hour.”

“Protective -”

“Protective gear on the team. Yes, thank you, Doctor Watson. Take care of yourself.” He hung up.

John stared at his phone. “Your brother has his uses but he’s still a git.”

Sherlock rolled his head toward him to share a small smirk. 

“Okay.” John plunked the med kit on the coffee table, shoving aside some bills and random sticky notes. He slid his hands into nitrile gloves and brought out a thermometer. While taking Sherlock’s temp, he refused to let his eyes follow the shape of his mouth, though he did notice it wasn’t its usual healthy pink color. More waxen. At least his lips weren’t blue. Still plush.

John pushed himself up to a stand and shoved those thoughts away. He stood back and looked the man over. Only Sherlock could look like a haggard old man and a petulant child all in one moment. His feet were bare and the dressing gown loose.

When the thermometer beeped and read 38 degrees Celsius, John relaxed. 

“When’s the cavalry coming?” Sherlock rasped. 

“Within the hour.”

“Oh goody,” Sherlock replied, sounding a bit more like himself. John picked the blanket off the floor and set it over him, tucking it around his shoulders.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You’ve not said a word. I’m your partner.” He turned his head when he felt his face flame at the word ‘partner.’ Mary’s words crossed his mind:  _ You can’t have him in the way you’d like. _

“You were enjoying your own isolation, John. I couldn’t risk your health,” Sherlock mumbled into his own shoulder, baring an expanse of white neck to the room. 

“While I appreciate the thought, people our age are dying.”

“You mean people your age.” Sherlock managed a smile.

“Arse. I mean people your age, too.” John checked his wristwatch. “Shit, I better call work.”

“You can’t stay here. You’re a hero. Go be a hero.”

“Ugh,” John shook his head as he looked down at his hands and the things he’d touched. “I’m not sure - I have to wash up and I should probably change my clothes. I’m not even sure what I’ve touched now.” John looked at the pile of detective on the couch, like some folded crane, all sharp angles and gangly limbs. “I’ll call them.”

In his call, Rebecca unleashed a few choice swears that shocked even him. “John, I need you, but I can’t have you here. It’d be a risk to the other doctors and to the patients. As desperate as I am, the responsible thing to do would be to ask you not to come in.”

“I understand.”

“You’ll need to go into quarantine again.”

“Yes.” His stomach turned at the idea of isolating again. The walls closing in on him. The constraint over his chest as if some weight had settled upon it for good.

The taste of failure rolling over his tongue.

He hung up with Rebecca. Stuck his head into the lounge to see Sherlock with eyes closed, resting on the sofa.

A torrent of footsteps up the stairs alerted John to Mycroft’s minions.

Several masked and gloved men entered the room. They set supplies, including a small oxygen tank, on the coffee table, and left, each of them nodding to John as they did. Not a single one of them spoke. 

John rifled through a box and took out the brand new pulse oximeter, still in the package. He unwrapped it just as someone new stepped inside the doorway. Mycroft, tall and imposing, brolly in hand.

“Brother mine, how are you?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, though the movement was only half-felt. 

“Stick out your finger,” John instructed. He stuck the oximeter on Sherlock. “Victor Trevor was staying here and left as soon as Sherlock was symptomatic.”

“Yes, my people have him,” Mycroft answered. “How nice to have become reacquainted with him, Sherlock. I’m sure the reunion was positively  _ fervid _ .” He said the last word with no small amount of glee. 

The tight grip of jealousy seized his gut. “Don’t antagonize my patient,” John said through clenched teeth.

“Yes. I imagine you’ll be quarantining yourself here with him, Doctor Watson.”

John stilled. 

He hadn’t quite thought that far.

The oximeter beeped and John checked it. Oxygen level and pulse rate fell into the normal range. No need for hospital. Not at the moment, anyway. 

The possibility of bringing it home to Rosie or to Mary? Mary was over forty. He was turning fifty. He drew in a breath and let it out before answering: “Yeah. He’ll need watching over. I’m to be quarantined. Might as well stay here rather than endanger anyone at home.”

“Most excellent. A grocery delivery should arrive this afternoon.” Mycroft swung the umbrella over his shoulder. “Dear brother, keep breathing please. Mummy would never forgive me for your death.”

John rolled his eyes at Mycroft’s back as he left. “Okay, this is how we’re doing it, no ifs, ands, or buts. Sherlock, you hear me?”

Sherlock exhaled with his entire body.

“You’re to stay in your room to keep the virus contained to one area. Use the bathroom as necessary. I can keep that clean. I will bring you food and water. You can have your laptop and books and whatever else you need, but you are to stay in there. I’m going to do a deep clean out here. We’ll keep everything separate so I don’t get sick.”

Sherlock’s face whipped about to look at him. “John. You can’t stay here. You’ve Rosie, and Mary. And you’re old. You could die.”

“Sherlock, stop,” John said. “Distressing yourself isn’t going to help your oxygen. Take deep breaths. I’ll help you to your room.”

“You mustn’t touch me.” Sherlock rose to a stand like a vampire from a coffin. His fluid movements had always surprised John. So much man, and so much grace. “Don’t touch anything, John. Oh my mind is so slow!” Sherlock wavered where he stood as he screwed his eyes shut and grabbed his curls with his hands.

“Hey!” John grabbed his arm. “C’mon. I’m okay. I know how to deal with contagious diseases. Let’s go.”

“Right. Right. War hero. Doctor. John Watson.” Sherlock let himself be led toward his bedroom.

A bloom of warmth uncurled in his chest. John smiled. “You can have paracetamol. I’ll get it for you once you’re in the bed.”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock said, suddenly seeming docile as a kitten. 

After Sherlock flopped onto his bed, John lay the covers over him. With his eyes closed and his mop of curls in disarray, he looked small and harmless. Not at all intimidating and sharp, like an iron maiden ready to envelop and drain the imprisoned. Just soft, inviting.

John got the water and paracetamol, and watched as Sherlock’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he drank the water and swallowed the pills. In the dim quiet of the room with only the two of them, John was suddenly happy to be back. The single window let in light through a rift of the curtains. The faded green of the Victorian wallpaper gave him a sense of comfort. He’d hardly entered Sherlock’s room, but it was much the same, including the strange certificate hanging over the bed, written in what looked like Japanese kanji. 

And, he couldn’t help but feel glad that he saw no sign of Victor in the room. No left behind valise, no watch or charger on the bedside table. Not a thing out of place, or so it seemed. Maybe Victor  _ had _ slept upstairs?

He went out to the lounge. Through all the years and despite the chaos Sherlock thrust into his life, 221B remained a steady point: frenzied in its decor, yet unchanging over time. The striking wallpaper remained the same as did the persian carpet. The assembly of books tossed haphazardly on shelves, the skull and the bat still on the mantle, the dust collecting on the mirror, the same vintage maps and old photos and botanical illustrations littered about on surfaces and walls. It comforted him in a way he refused to acknowledge before. 

He let out a loud sigh and decided to check his bedroom. His old bedroom. Some of his clothes hung in the closet for the occasional overnight after a case. Mary preferred for him to come home, but he’d found occasion now and then to stay. 

He hoped he’d find some clue of Victor having stayed in his bedroom rather than Sherlock’s. The thought made him want to vomit a little - god this jealousy withered his insides. Not quite ready to face the possibility no one stayed in his room, he decided to do one other necessary thing instead. 

The med supply box contained a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol along with wipes and several bottles of hand sanitiser. He still wore the nitrile gloves, so he pulled those off and put on a new pair. After he wiped down his phone, he called Mary.

“Hello.” Her tone was cool and dismissive. 

“Uh, bad news. I’ve come into contact with a presumptive case of COVID19.”

Silence. Like the pause before a jury’s declaration of guilt. Weighted. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Watched his shoulders rise slow and slight with his breath. 

“It’s him, innit?” she said. 

John licked his lips and tilted his chin up. “Sorry?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, John. We both know you went to see him before heading to work. He’s the case, isn’t he?”

John closed his eyes. Breathed. “Yes.”

“And big brother’s going to test him and send all the medical supplies there, yes?”

“Yes.” He opened his eyes to see his face, resolute, eyebrows and mouth drawn flat. 

“Then you might as well stay there. It’s where you’ve wanted to be all this time anyway.”

“Mary -”

“I’ll pack up some clothes. Have the government pick them up and deliver them.”

“Mary? Wait -”

She’d hung up. 

His eyes didn’t leave the mirror, the bags beneath them as big as coin purses. Watched his chest draw in the air. The mirror hung high, so he couldn’t see any part of his lower body, but his lungs were expanding and contracting within their muscular walls. As long as he could keep breathing, he could do this, as thin as the air seemed at times. 

He opened the door to Sherlock’s bedroom. Sherlock lied still and almost silent against the pillow, his breathing soft, his mouth ajar. His dark curls plastered against his pale forehead like a Rorschach’s image. The urge to brush back that hair caught him by surprise. It was a good thing he was wearing gloves and stood at a distance, because he might have reached for him otherwise, compelled by the grace of the man in his sleep to touch that soft skin and feel the weight of his curls. He squeezed his fingers together, closing and opening his hands at his sides. 

As long as they both kept breathing, they could do this.


	5. Chapter 5

John started his deep clean in the bathroom, and moved to the kitchen. His back and feet ached but he could breathe more freely knowing that every possible surface he could touch had been disinfected. 

As he moved to the lounge to collect the things Sherlock kept like some mad magpie, he noticed an open book on his desk with a highlighted passage. 

_ I cannot help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my closeness to you, your presence never leaves me. _

It was a letter written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Next to the highlighted passage was a post-it with a handwritten note in blue ink, the penmanship stylish and exquisite. 

_ Think about it.  _

_ With Love,  _

_ V. _

John’s hands clutched the book tightly as his lips pressed into a thin crack. His heart pounded in his chest while the rest of his body seemed to petrify. Victor had written this note. Highlighted this particular passage with a fluorescent yellow marker. Neatly. Before he left. Sherlock must have seen it. Hadn’t even deigned to close the book and put it away. Left it out. For the detective to see again? For him to consider Victor’s plea? Why?

Sherlock had said Victor left when Sherlock showed symptoms. But oh, he could see it now, all too clearly. Victor trying to rekindle things, making every possible advance. The way Sherlock had been receptive to him, the way he ducked his head and the way he smiled as if feeling shy and pleased. Maybe they’d had sex. Probably had sex. But Sherlock? Sherlock would have been too snobbish, too logical, to allow romance and “entanglement.” Here, Victor likely failed. And once Sherlock started coughing, Sherlock told Victor to leave. Took the opportunity to cut off any possibility of burgeoning love. 

John’s jaw ached. It was just like Sherlock to play it down. Just like him to ignore his  _ transport’s _ desires, his mind’s appeal for the softer emotions. To see himself as above, to see something so basic and wonderful to human existence as incredible nonsense - as something that would make him less of a man. 

_ Well, fuck him. _ He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he missed out on. Yeah, John was about to get divorced and his marriage had been a disaster, but damn it all, real love was worth it. Had to be worth it. And Sherlock looked down on the rest of them -  _ on him _ \- for entertaining the very notion.  _ Fuck him. _

He could almost feel sorry for Victor Trevor. And that wasn’t something that he liked to think about, but then, he was also glad that Victor hadn’t got anywhere with Sherlock. Nowhere that mattered in the long run.

Right?

Then, he also hated that Sherlock brushed Victor off. 

His stomach spun like a merry-go-round, and the resulting dizziness was having an emetic effect. He swallowed, closed the book. It wasn’t any of his business. He was getting a divorce. He wasn’t going to see Rosie for a while and that sat like a heavy stone in his gut. That stone seemed to pull on a string in his chest and he didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t think about it. 

John rolled his shoulders back and grimaced as he glanced at the front cover. It was plain, titled  _ The Love Letters of Great Men. _ He rolled his eyes. Only ‘great men,’ of course. 

He placed the book on a shelf, drew in a deep breath, and continued the arduous task of deep cleaning the lounge of bloody Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

His muscles ached. A twinge sprung in his lower back. The flat was the cleanest it had been in years, every surface polished to a shine, every piece of clutter placed in a home. He didn’t care whether Sherlock appreciated it or not. It was John's place, too, for the time being. And he hoped while he was at it he’d scrubbed any possible residual evidence of Victor Trevor ever having been there. Sure, Sherlock could just visit his Mind Palace, but John took a certain amount of rabid glee in imagining he’d wiped that man’s every possible bit of dander or fingerprint from the flat. 

When the grocery delivery arrived, John immediately stocked the shelves and began planning a menu for the next week. Freshest stuff to be used first. Everything that was Sherlock’s favorites - the thing with the peas and such. He hid the biscuits so Sherlock wouldn’t subsist on just them and tea. A banoffee pie to make it up to him.

Maybe.

That night, after they’d eaten a light dinner of salad with grilled chicken - which Sherlock grumbled over though it turned out he loved salad turnips and stole half of John’s - John settled into the lounge to read. The offending book caught his eye, and with a sniff he took it down. He let it open to a random page, avoiding the page that held Victor Trevor’s imploration of requited love. 

_ Honor with your presence the man who, if only he were free, would go a thousand miles to throw himself at your feet and never move from there. _

The words hit him in the chest like a bullet hitting bone. If he were, like Victor, to make a declaration of love to Sherlock Holmes, these would be the lines he’d use.

John thrust the book back on the shelf. These thoughts were ridiculous. In the time he might have asked Sherlock to take a chance on him, Sherlock had thrown himself off a roof.  There wasn’t to be any declaration of love between them.

He had Mary. Failed as it was. He thought he’d return to Sherlock, as his partner and his blogger. His doctor. His best friend.

_ John Watson, _ Sherlock had said in his feverish stupour with no small amount of fondness. 

John threw himself down on the sofa so hard he thought he might have busted one of the springs. He started to prop up one of the pillows when a bottle in the crack of the sofa arm caught his eye.  _ How’d I miss that? _

He brought it out and looked at the label. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. When it hit him, he dropped it as if it were on fire.

_ Anal lube. _

His heart pounded in his ears.

Well, good. Good for Sherlock. Good for Sherlock and Victor. They’d had a bit of fun. Probably helped Sherlock to unwind, and god, did he need to unwind sometimes. He must have been bored out of his gourd over the quarantine, and Victor was able to entertain him. And then Sherlock kicked him out. Made it clear that there was nothing more. And good riddance to that, honestly. 

_ But _ , said that little voice in the back of his head,  _ what if Sherlock decides to take Victor up on his offer?  _

If Victor came back, where would John go?

That’s when he realized that he’d hoped, with this divorce from Mary, that he’d be able to move back into Baker Street. It just seemed a natural assumption on his part, a seamless route in his new life as a divorcee. 

He’d just ask Sherlock. When Sherlock felt better. He’d ask to move back in. Then he’d ask him about Victor and the whole stupid note, and then Sherlock would tell him that he laughed in Victor’s face and they could have a chuckle about it together. To best friends! Best friends solving crime and living together and to gallows humour and to a life lived without romantic love.

John’s heart beat hollowly at that last thought. 

Well. For now. It was him and Sherlock. For now. 

* * *

_ Day 3 of Quarantine _

A great hacking cough came from the door of Sherlock’s bedroom like the scraping of rubbish bins on asphalt. 

“John,” Sherlock rasped, standing like a spectral figure in the doorway. “My brain is deliquescing into a pool of grey matter. The puzzle books are infuriating - what care I for who was Prime Minister in 1992? Or what American baseball team has won the World Series? It’s inane minutiae that parades itself as superior knowledge when truly it only panders to pop culture junkies. It is an insult, John.”

“Well, you must be feeling better,” John said as he stirred chicken soup on the cooktop. “I’m about to serve dinner. Stay in your room; I’ll be a mo’.”

“I can’t stay in there and stare at the same four walls for an endless stretch of time.”

“Bored, are you?”

Sherlock scowled, ugly and wrinkled. “How can you ask me that? I haven’t left this flat in two weeks and you have now confined me to a single room. Of course, I’m bored.”

“You know, I’ve heard it said that if you’re bored, it must be because you are a boring person yourself.”

Sherlock’s jaw dropped. “Who said that garbage?”

“I think it means you’re not clever enough to think of anything to entertain yourself.”

Sherlock closed his mouth and glared at him as he stepped inside his room and shut the door.

John chuckled to himself. “That’ll give me some peace.” 

“I can hear you through the door,” came Sherlock’s muffled shout, followed by another rib-rattling cough.

John ladled a serving into a bowl and placed it on a tray with a spoon and a napkin. Cooking in the kitchen at 221B filled him a sense of equilibrium, of a soft homecoming. It was only temporary - when their quarantine was up, John would have to find a new place. Not home with Mary, obviously. A new home. 

He was no longer convinced that he could ask Sherlock permission to move in. Thoughts of Victor, of the note, of the bloody lube, it was all spinning him into a tizzy and he’d decided he needed distance. That decision had given him some satisfaction, some distance from the problem.

He placed a mask on his face, popped the elastic over his ears, pulled on a set of nitrile gloves, and picked up the tray.

Sherlock was flopped face-down on his bed. 

“Sherlock? I’ve made soup and you’re going to eat it.”

“Anything to break up this boredom,” Sherlock said as he turned over, the curls falling over his eyes. 

“Your hair has gotten long,” John said, and couldn’t help the note of fondness in his voice. 

Sherlock’s brow furrowed as he said, “I thought about paying someone to come in and cut it.”

“Sherlock, I swear to god -”

“I didn’t!”

John’s eyes swept over him. His breathing seemed normal and he was sitting up with his eye on the food. When John lived here after Mary shot Sherlock, he would sometimes read aloud to him. Sherlock never requested it, but John got the feeling that he liked it. “How about you finish this meal, and I’ll read something.”

“Mm.” He picked up his spoon and blew on the steaming liquid. “Nothing like that tripe you read me last time.”

“Come on, you liked knowing who the killer was before I did.”

“Christie is at least halfway imaginative. If you must read.”

John smiled. It was a battle won.

As he headed back out to the lounge, his eyes snagged on the book of love letters. An uncomfortable swell of jealousy rose in his gut like a geyser. He had to cap it. It had nothing to do with him, as much as he wished Sherlock would confide in him. If Sherlock had been around while John was dating Mary, he might have told Sherlock all about the whirlwind romance they had.  But it wouldn’t have been the same, then, would it? John might not have even met Mary. Might not have needed that hole filled in his life. Might have been content with Sherlock and his life chasing criminals. 

_ Neither here nor there. _ He grabbed Agatha Christie’s  _ Death on the Nile  _ from the shelf and headed back. He set a kitchen chair just outside the doorway. 

As he entered the bedroom, his eyes perused the surfaces for any sign that Victor Trevor had been there, again. It’d become a stupid habit, and he was ashamed of it. He’d never spent a lot of time in Sherlock’s room, but nothing seemed like it would belong to another man. No mugs or watches or anything on either bedside table. No books that didn’t seem like they wouldn’t belong to Sherlock. Nothing that seemed like a token. No condom wrappers in the rubbish bin. 

“Well?” Sherlock said from his place, propped with pillows and the bowl of soup already half-eaten. The sight made John smile, and he was glad for the mask. 

“I’ve set up a chair just outside the door. That’s where I’ll be reading.”

“What stunning piece of fiction have you picked out for us today?”

John held up the book.

Sherlock dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “Haven’t read it.”

“Good.”  _ Have you read Victor’s note? Did you read the highlighted passage? _ John cleared his throat. Goddamnit. He’d made his decision. Was making his peace. He wasn’t going to ask Sherlock about moving in, and he wasn’t going to ask him about Victor Trevor. 

Sherlock peered at him through his unruly fringe. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”

_ Heartsick. _ He shoved that ridiculous thought from his mind as he shook his head. “Something caught in my throat. Let me know that you can hear me okay.” John left the room and sat in the kitchen chair, pulling down his mask and opening the book to the first page.

* * *

_ Day 4 of Quarantine _

The thought of Rosie pulled at his chest. Her smiling face had been such a constant in his life, like stars at night or London fog. The few phone calls with her seemed to underscore the loss rather than provide relief. Added to the weight below his sternum. How would the divorce affect her? Would Mary explain it to her? Without him present?

Was she safe in this world? With this pandemic rising?

Would there be another?

He rubbed his temples, feeling overtired and heavy, striving to grab himself solace. Cradled in the comforts of 221 Baker Street. Sitting in his old chair by the fire, sipping scotch - not a good habit to start this early in the morning, but just this once - and book in hand. The wind outside whipped about in an icy frenzy, and he’d been trying to lose himself in the adventures lived by a fictional character.

Sherlock seemed to be having a lie-in this morning. His cough had kept them up half the night, John offering throat lozenges and water, feeling useless as Sherlock’s svelte frame shook with the force of his hacking.

He’d been able to subsume his thoughts, inconvenient and inappropriate thoughts, by focusing on Sherlock in doctor mode. In doctor mode, he wasn’t tempted to ask Sherlock about Victor Trevor.  _ How did you two meet? What was he like in uni? Did you just fuck or were you in love? _

_ Do you ever want to be in love again? _

He held onto the glass of amber liquid and stared at the words in his book as they blurred and squiggled together, his mind wandering off and away. The not-knowing might be worse than the knowing, but would Sherlock even open up about that part of his life?

Victor Trevor, stretching out that rangy figure of his in John’s own chair, his shirt open to reveal all that muscular chest, his eyes consuming Sherlock with greed. Did Sherlock respond to that? Of course, Sherlock loved danger. Victor may be a businessman, but he had the sort of ravening edge in his eyes.

John might even be into that, except Victor was...the opposition?

_ Jesus. _

He threw his book down on the floor. 

His phone rang.

_ Mary. _

He hid his glass of scotch from his view, behind the chair on the floor. Silly, but she was shrewd enough as it was, and he wasn’t going to give her any sense of his current mental state if he could help it. She wouldn’t smell it on his breath, but she might hear the  _ clink clink _ of the ice against the glass.

“Hi,” he said.

“I’ve made an appointment with the lawyer,” she said. “Might as well get it started. I thought you should know.”

He pressed his lips together. “Mm. Yeah. Surprised they’re open. Thanks for telling me.”

“It’s all done on Zoom now, it seems.” She sounded bored. Then, “I hope you know what you’re doing. He loves you, but he’s not capable of loving you, you know.”

Raking her claws in. “Uh, you know that’s not true. He planned our wedding. He tried to help you.”  _ And you shot him. _ “He encouraged me to go back to you when I left. He helped me find you when you left.”

“What I mean is, he can’t love you the way you want him to.”

John straightened up in his chair, his spine like cold steel. “Oh, and you know so much about what I want, or what he wants?”

“I know your limits, and I know his,” she said. “I know what you can become, and I know what you can’t.”

John gripped the arm of his chair, his knuckles paling. “You don’t know anything about us. Not really. Not what counts.”

Mary laughed, low and teasing. “Oh please, John. I know both of you better than you know yourselves.” She went quiet. “I just hate to see you get hurt, is all.”

He could picture her curled up on her favourite end of the sofa. Getting in the last word, like she always did. Cat who caught the canary and all that. It grated at him like bare skin across a rough brick wall. “I appreciate your concern, but it’s not really your business, is it?”

“No, I suppose it isn’t. But I can still care about you, can’t I?”

He forced himself to relax his fist, lower his shoulders. “Yeah.” He worked his throat. “How are you doing?”

“Really, John?” The edge of annoyance in her voice let him know that he misstepped.

“Sorry.” Though, why was he apologising?

“Yeah. Just remember what I said.”

“And you remember what I said.” The hackles rose again. “Goodbye, Mary.”

“Goodbye.”

He slid his phone into the cushion beside him. Stared down at the wedding band, now dull and dingy.  _ I know you better than you know yourselves. _

_ I know what you could become. _

_ I know what you can’t. _

He curled his hand with the wedding ring into a fist.

“John?” Sherlock’s smoky-rich voice slipped over him. “Was...was that Mary?”

_ He heard. _

John twisted in his chair to see him. He wore a dressing gown and seemed to have made some effort to tame his hair. “You’re supposed to be in your bedroom.”

“I was thirsty,” he said, his eyes falling to the ground.

John looked back at his wedding band.  _ Why are you even still wearing it? _

He looked up again at Sherlock, who watched him, face blank as ever. 

He held that gaze, those piercing eyes locked with his. John didn’t break eye contact as he worked the ring off his finger and pocketed it. 

As Sherlock watched the movement, his lips parted and his pupils shrank. 

“Yeah,” John said in a hoarse voice. “That was Mary.”


	6. Chapter 6

_Day 5 in Quarantine_

John stewed in the lounge, wondering if the tightness in his chest was a symptom of COVID-19 or just a symptom of his mental state. He’d been sitting there inhaling and exhaling, thinking of the path oxygen follows to sustain human life. Lungs are lobed - the right lung has three, and the left has two to make room for the heart. The lungs begin at the bottom of the trachea. Air moves through the mouth and nose to the back of the throat, down the trachea, and into bronchial tubes that lead into each lung. These tubes branch out into bronchioles, like the branches and twigs of a tree, stretching into the lung tissue, carrying the oxygen along. At the end of these tiny - some no thicker than a hair’s width - tubes are grape-like clusters called alveoli. There are some 30,000 alveoli in each lung.

Sat in his chair, temple on his fist, facing Sherlock's chair. Whenever the image of his friend’s head and blood on the sidewalk interrupted his thinking, he redirected his thoughts to pathways in the lungs. Breathing involves the diaphragm - it contracts, creates a vacuum, a space, where air can rush in and the lungs expand. To exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and moves upward. Expansion and contraction, like the gentle opening and closing of butterfly wings.

Hard to believe here John was, years later, looking at the chair of his very much alive friend, though said friend was currently suffering from the cause of the world’s pandemic. 

At the end of the day, Sherlock wasn’t a dependable person. Oh sure, he’d helped with John’s wedding, and stuck to his vow to keep John and his family safe. But who knew if another shiny case would come along that would require him to fake his death again and take off to parts unknown. 

At the end of the day, Victor Trevor had probably dodged a bullet, and the man didn’t even know.

He couldn’t know Sherlock the way John knew Sherlock.

_But he does know him in other ways, doesn’t he?_

And not even that was confirmed. Mycroft seemed to once imply that Sherlock was “alarmed” by sex. But John had clearly been the only nervous one in the room with Irene Adler, though Sherlock seemed a bit thrown by her nudity, he was neither embarrassed nor flustered. He seemed - annoyed. 

Then again, if he were into men, that could explain it. 

Victor. That man exuded carnal energy that suggested he was familiar with Sherlock in a way John would rather not think about. 

Yet John did. Especially at night, with the sleeping detective in the room below him. Thoughts of that dream he had of the two men together, of Sherlock reacting to Victor’s touch, of the noises he might make. Snatches of images and words. Sherlock could probably deduce exactly what anyone liked in bed. No wonder Victor seemed so desperate to have him back. The man was probably a god when it came to the bedroom.

When Sherlock had seen him pocket the wedding band the day before, his eyes had widened on his pale face. Without saying a word, he walked back to his room and shut the door. He took his meal in his room as usual but didn’t ask John a single thing about the state of his marriage. Probably deduced everything, and wasn’t interested in knowing anything about John’s _feelings_ on the matter. Didn’t even ask about Rosie.

John exhaled, pushing those thoughts from his head. Sitting here letting those thoughts spiral like vultures wasn’t doing him any good. 

And this was part of the problem with staying here with Sherlock. With the possibility of becoming roommates with him again. Letting himself be ensnared by the gravitational pull of Sherlock’s orbit once more. Swallowed by the man’s supernova energy. 

It wouldn’t be good for him. He had to leave. When this was over.

* * *

_Day 8 in Quarantine_

John put the book down in his lap. “My voice needs a rest. Why don’t you talk for once?” it came out as more of a statement than a question.

Sherlock harrumphed from the bed. “Aren’t I the one suffering from a respiratory disease?” But his voice was full of humour. “My money’s on the man -”

“I don’t want your deduction this time. This time, I have my own ideas, and I don’t want you influencing my thoughts on this.”

Sherlock smirked, and it needled John like a splinter in his thumb. He thought again about Sherlock's lack of confidences, his lack of inquiries. Deduction, deduction, deduction. Seeing and observing. Blah, blah, blah.

“You know, you’ve deduced so much about me, it’s not really fair.”

Sherlock’s eyes rolled to meet his, but the smirk on his face seemed to slip, which engendered a warm feeling of satisfaction in John. 

“It’s a little one-sided, innit?”

“If you used your -”

“Don’t start that. You’ve had years to hone that brain of yours, and you’re clever. You know it. Yeah, so if the rest of us trained ourselves to be better at observation, maybe we wouldn’t look like such big dunces next to you, but ultimately, most people aren’t as clever as you, so you’ve already got them beat.”

Sherlock seemed concerned and moved his lips to say something but John cut him off.

“So tell me something about yourself. Something I don’t know.”

“There are a great many things I could tell you. Perhaps you could narrow the field a little.”

“Tell me about Victor.”

Sherlock’s lips flattened and his eyes clashed with John’s, a hint of storm to them. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, you met in uni. How? What was he like? What were you like? Normal bloke stuff that best friends talk about.” His upper lip curled, just a bit, but John was determined. “C’mon. You’ve made plenty of observations about my past, my dates, and such. What about yours?”

“Victor and I met in the quad when his dog bit my ankle.”

John fell forward in his chair. “His dog bit you?”

“English bulldog.”

“What did you do to the poor thing?”

Sherlock’s face grew shadowed, his eyes unfocused. “I was running past. Must have incited the thrill of the hunt in him. He was otherwise a good dog.”

“And I imagine Victor was very sorry.” He pushed the words out as if his mouth was filled with cotton.

“Very.” Sherlock’s eyes were far. Distant. So far that John felt the thread of the conversation slipping away, the spool cast far across the room.

“So did he help you with the bite?” he asked in an effort to retrieve the spool.

“Hm?” Sherlock focused again on John. “No. Not - no. I went home. Fixed myself. Saw him again. He recognized me. Then proceeded to apologize - John, let’s talk about something else.”

“Something else? Um, okay. Was there ever anyone aside from Victor?”

“Why your sudden fascination with my love life?” Sherlock asked with a hard edge to his voice.

“Uh, like I said -”

“Yes, I have deduced things about you. But romance is but one thing in my life, and it was fleeting and distracting and ultimately unfulfilling. Why are you so obsessed with something I’m trying to avoid?”

John licked his lips. The loathing and the thick, wet knot of his feelings grew tense in his chest, settling in like a soaked, woolen blanket. “You’re trying to avoid? Did - was it okay with Victor here?”

“He - it was fine.”

“He didn’t - he didn’t apply too much pressure on you, did he?”

Sherlock looked bewildered but then the expression on his face furrowed. “Why, John. Were you concerned for my virtue? Such a knight in shining armour, you are. I can assure you that where my virtue is concerned, there is none left. So you needn’t concern yourself whether or not I can fend off the foolishness of Victor’s amorous intentions.”

That did settle John’s nerves somewhat. “Oh, so, nothing happened?”

“Plenty happened, John,” Sherlock said with a flick of his hand. 

The blood left his face so quickly John thought he might fall over with the dizziness of it. Cold crawled across his neck, crept down his spine in a nervy shiver, formed a fist of ice in his gut. 

“It remains a mystery to me why you should care, though,” Sherlock said, his voice building toward something - some crescendo toward an apex that John couldn’t quite see coming. “Do you want the gritty details? The sordid facts? Shall I draw you a diagram?”

“I just -”

“I’m at a loss, John, as to why you insist on knowing more about a part of myself that I have put aside, and have made peace with. I _hate_ when my transport tries to get the best of me.” He indicated his sickbed. “And to be romantically entangled? It is a chemical defect. Nothing more. And yet, it seems it’s all you want to hear from me when we have these little talks about our pasts. Why haven’t I considered romantic love? Why won’t I date anyone? On our first night together, you were curious to know almost immediately if I were in a relationship. I may be out of touch when it comes to social niceties, John, but I know that’s not one of the normal questions two blokes immediately inquire about over dinner. Especially while chasing a murderer.”

The ice in John’s stomach expanded, and cold slushed through his veins. 

“So what is it, John? Because the only probable reason I can come to is that you want to prove that I am not what you said I am.” That’s it, he’s off, his voice a low and rapid staccato of shots fired. “Ever since you met me, ever since you could see what I could do, you’ve done what you can to knock me down a peg. Whether it was taking cheap shots in your blog or getting off on telling me what to do and how to act, you’ve done what you can to diminish me. It must be so confusing to be you. To be drowning in hero-worship, and to hate that you do that, so you simultaneously try to knock that person off the pedestal. And one of the things you hate about me, John, is that I _can_ operate like a machine. You said so yourself, didn’t you? And so I can only think, John, that you harp on this topic because if you can prove that I do have feelings, then not only am I not the machine you fear me to be, but you will have succeeded in entirely knocking me off the pedestal and I’ll be on the ground, like you, crawling among all the ordinary people.”

John stood from his chair, the book falling to the floor with a loud _thud._ “No! That’s - that’s not true!” His heart hammered, his ears rushed with heat, the ice breaking away with a wave of crackling anger. “I don’t think you’re a machine, I know you’re not, and I’m sorry I ever called you that, but you are definitely an arsehole. You - you can’t know what it’s like. I’m in your shadow, and that’s fine. But I’ve got to know that you - you’re human, sometimes. Sometimes you’re so much bigger than us, and I think -’well, he’s my best friend, I know him the best’ - but the truth is, I really don’t! You’re so bloody secretive about everything, and I hate it!”

He stared at the floor though his jaw ached and the beginnings of a headache poked in from one temple. The vise that had been tightening his chest squeezed and he was desperate to breathe, to exhale, to let it all out. “You leave me out of things because you like to prove that you’re clever. And - with Mary, you… You did it again. You and Mary with your stupid jokes. I was just some dog. Except I didn’t bite you.” _God, you’re making no sense._ “The two of you are so bloody clever, and here’s stupid John Watson, being taken in by the both of you. One who throws himself off a building and cons his best friend into thinking he was dead for two years, and the other a bloody assassin - and how did you not see that, Sherlock? Hm? You see everything don’t you?” He turned away from Sherlock as he balled his fists. Turning around to face him, he pointed a finger and said, “Just once, I would like to have a normal relationship in my life, hm? Not a best friend that will drop me for a case to go gallivanting across the world like a bloody secret agent. Not an assassin wife who shoots my best friend and then my best friend forcing me to forgive her when we all know that marriage was headed for a wreck anyway. And instead of it happening like a derailed train, it just happened in this - “ he brought his fists up to his temples as he squeezed his eyes shut “- slow decay.” Like a shrinking leaf pile in a forgotten corner of the yard. He dropped his hands to his sides as he opened his eyes. “Just once, I’d like something a little normal.”

Sherlock goggled, his mouth ajar on his pale face. “I didn’t realize I could be at fault for so much unhappiness in your life. It’s a wonder you remain my friend.”

John stalled. This response wasn’t what he was expecting, and the spew of words he just released was...telling. “I - “

“It wasn’t gallivanting. It wasn’t...I missed you every day. And since then, I’ve done what I can to keep you alive and...happy.”

John shook his head and swung his arms as he paced. “Well, maybe sometime you should try asking me what would make me happy, instead of just assuming what’s best for me.”

“What would make you happy now?”

John stopped by his chair. He'd moved it just inside the bedroom door, still several feet from where Sherlock sat up in he bed. He picked the book up from the ground. Dusted off the cover as if it had something on it. _You letting me in. You. Just you._ “I - I don’t know.”

He could feel the weight of Sherlock’s stare, like the sun beating down on a hot day. “You don’t know what you want, or you don’t know how to ask for it?”

John gave a small wave, a sort of ripple that lifted one shoulder and caused him to shift his stance again, waves of discomfort flashing through him. 

Sherlock remained quiet. Perhaps he was waiting.

John left the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He looked around the empty, clean kitchen, his heart in his throat, trying desperately to blossom, but stunted. Tight in the bud. He swallowed. Put the book on the counter and headed for the steps to his bedroom. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I woke up this morning to comments of agony, I couldn't leave you all hanging like that. So here's this chapter a bit earlier than I intended. Hope it helps. <3

_ Day 10 of Quarantine _

“John, my cough really is better.”

John sucked in his cheeks as he bent over the sink, rinsing a plate. This was the third time in as many hours that they were having this fight. It was a bit of a relief after a day of quiet courtesies in the wake of their argument. John hated that. It was awkward. It was unlike them. But he’d brought it on himself. He realized that he had been resentful and envious of Sherlock, and that he'd needled at the man while he was sick and not feeling well.

“You still need to stay in your room until we get the results of your swab back.” Mycroft was expected to text at any moment.

A sigh. “Maybe you should find a hotel room -”

“Don’t even.” John dropped the plate into the drying rack and faced him. “How could you even say that?” The fortress of numb feeling he’d been building in his chest started to crumble. “Do you not want me to stay here?”

Sherlock stared at him from the doorway of his room, his eyes visible above the face mask. “No! I always want you here! I -” He turned away. “I only meant, I don’t wish to risk your health, and I’m capable enough to care for myself at this point.” 

John softened. Goddamnit. The fortress. Crumbling again. “I appreciate that. I want to stay.” He did. He was sure when Sherlock looked back, the detective could see a vast array of emotions oscillating across John’s face. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and he was tired of hiding. 

A glint formed in Sherlock’s eyes. “You can’t force me to stay in here forever.” John could picture his scowl perfectly without having to see it. “I’m an unstoppable force.”

“It’s not forever and you know it.” John smiled.

“It feels like forever.”

“You have a big enough brain to know it hasn’t been. It’s been ten days.”

“After two weeks of having to stay in the flat, John!”

John couldn’t help it as his smile grew wider. They were finally bordering on some sense of normalcy. It was a relief. He needed to hand out some sort of olive branch - some sort of acknowledgment. “You know, Sherlock, I want to tell you that I really appreciate that you did take my recommendation to heart. That you didn’t leave the flat for two weeks. I really appreciate that you took me seriously.”

Something about Sherlock’s eyes softened. “I always take you seriously.”

John scoffed. “That’s not true and you know it.”

He could tell from Sherlock’s eyes that he was smiling beneath the mask. “When it counts, I do.”

That small admission stole John’s breath. He swallowed. “Well, thank you.”

“What if I just stand here with the mask on and we play Cluedo?”

“No, no way. I know better.” He could swear Sherlock was now pouting. “You stay there, and I’ll read another Christie.”

“How many did you bring with you?” 

John avoided answering as he wiped around the sink with a dishtowel. Mary had sent along all of John’s things, including this stack of novels he had yet to get to. He’d put it all in his room upstairs, though Sherlock must have heard his footsteps and probably could have guessed that John carried quite a few heavy boxes upstairs. Hadn’t mentioned it though.

_ It’s just like you to not talk about things, wasn’t it? _

Just like him and Mary, actually. Rosie was turning five this year. In that time, his marriage slipped from him as quietly as a shadow under a high sun. The thought depressed him. 

The biggest failures of his life involved never reconciling with his parents before they died, never reconciling with his sister, getting invalided from the army, and preventing what he thought was his best friend’s suicide. Now, he could add his marriage to the list. 

The fortress started building up again, around him, dampening the air flow and stirring up an old anger he’d hoped would remain below.

“John, I refuse to sit around and wallow -”

“Will you stop thinking about yourself for two seconds?” John’s voice rose to a bellow as he threw the dishtowel to the floor. “I’m about to go through a divorce, I miss my daughter, the world is in a pandemic, and I’m stuck here with the whiniest - just, god, Sherlock!”

Sherlock stilled. His eyes narrowed on John. “If it makes you feel better John, marriage as a historical institution was a mere exchange of goods -”

“Bloody christ, Sherlock! This isn’t - you don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s not - that’s not what marriage is now. But who am I bloody talking to? How’d you even get Victor to date you, hm? You obviously don’t feel things that way. And it’s not right, you know.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “What’s not right?”

He was tired of dancing around it. “You shouldn’t start things up with an old flame who obviously still has feelings for you if you don’t actually have feelings for him!”

Sherlock jerked back. “I’m afraid I have no clue as to what you’re referring to.”

“Don’t be obtuse! You’re always telling me to observe. Certainly, you expected I’d see his note?” 

“His note?”

John let out an explosive, guttural noise and stalked to the lounge. He took out the book titled  _ Love Letters of Great Men _ and brought it to the kitchen as it opened to the bookmarked page with Victor’s highlighted passage. He held the book up with his finger on Victor’s sticky note.

_ I cannot help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my closeness to you, your presence never leaves me. _

“He says ‘Think about it,’ Sherlock. Have you? Did you give him even a moment of your consideration?”

If John didn’t know better he’d say Sherlock looked stricken. Alarmed. Caught. He pressed on. “If you have the opportunity, you should go after it.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed angrily. “I don’t do romantic entanglement.”

“Goddamnit, Sherlock! Romantic entanglement would complete you as a human being!”

His eyes widened, just a bit. Then narrowed to reptilian slits as he stepped back into his room and shut the door, the click of the latch like a muffled gunshot. 

John shut the book and held it to his chest, his heart racing like a galloping horse.  _ Think about it _ , Victor had said. 

John might have been assuming quite a bit. But he knew Sherlock. He would have pricked and galled Victor into leaving if he didn’t ask him to leave outright. 

But Jesus Christ. What was he doing? Mary’s words slipped into his memory like water slipping into cracks and crevices.  _ I know what you can become, and I know what you can’t. _

What was he doing? Trying to prove her wrong? Trying to prove himself wrong? What was the point of trying to push Sherlock into Victor’s arms? 

It hit him like a spike through the chest: to know Sherlock was open to romance. To love.  He wanted to know that Sherlock was open to romantic entanglement. That John might, when he was ready, make his move. Present himself as a capable partner. Didn’t they already do everything together? Weren’t they already the most suited to each other?

It would mean changing...changing things about himself, but…

_ Jesus. I can’t...I just can’t. _

He swiped his face with a trembling hand and looked down at the book. His shoulder ached. The space in his head was closed in, clouded. Chest congested.

This wasn’t even the time to be considering such things. 

It was time to put aside the turmoil of feelings and focus on tangible steps. His divorce. Arrangements with Rosie. He couldn’t wander around like a pale slip of ghost in the flat, wrestling with his thoughts, trying to keep a lid on his feelings. It wasn’t doing him any favours. 

His phone buzzed.

**_Received_ **

_ Congratulations. Both of your test results came back negative. - MH _

John let out a sigh of relief. Slid the phone back into his pocket, and thought about his options.

He placed the book on the table and sank into his chair. Picked up his laptop, and began writing a private blog post.

_ I’ve been an arse. It’s not you. I’m just having a rough time of it with Mary and all that. I won’t say another word about Victor Trevor or ask you about your love life, past or present. I just want us to be the best of friends now, and move forward. _

The opening creak of Sherlock’s bedroom door interrupted him, followed by the soft padding of feet nearing the lounge. John twisted in his chair to see Sherlock standing there, eyes fixed on John. Contrite, maybe.

“Sherlock, I -”

“John, would you prefer me if I engaged in a romantic relationship?”

“What? I - uh, no, that’s not what I mean, that’s not what...”

Sherlock picked up the book that John left laying on the kitchen table. He read the words aloud in that beautiful, deep voice of his, enunciating each word crisply, even through the mask. “I cannot help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my closeness to you, your presence never leaves me.” 

John swallowed hard to hear those words said in Sherlock’s smooth cadence. Deep in his gut, he recognized that it was his wish Sherlock intended those words for him. Before he’d seen his friend jump. Before he recommitted to Mary that Christmas. And it was selfish. The whole thing was selfish.

“It’s not that without love, you’re less human. That’s never what I meant.” The shadows across the wall from the fire’s light seem to waltz around them. It reminded him of that day, where they held one another in a dance. Sherlock, preparing John for his wedding. “It’s obvious that you can love. I guess, sometimes I wish you could enjoy romantic love. Because I want to see you happy. You said - you said you do all that you can to make me happy. Didn’t you ever think I’d want the same for you?” John realised as he said it, that as selfish as his feelings had been, he did in fact want Sherlock to be happy. If it meant seeing him with Victor Trevor, then that was what he would do as his best friend. As the best of best friends.

The pressure in his chest eased just a bit.

“You know I value reason above all emotions,” Sherlock said. 

“Yes, and going forward, I’m going to do my best to respect that. I - I didn’t mean to badger you before. That wasn’t fair of me.”

“But you would prefer we were wholly honest with each other?”

“Well, yeah, of course. Honesty is important to me.” John cleared his throat as he thought again of Mary, and her digs at him over the phone. She was  _ jealous, _ wasn’t she, of him and Sherlock? How had he never seen it before?

“It’s not that I don’t feel, John,” Sherlock said. He looked like he was teetering, not only in his words, but on his feet.

“Sit down, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked around him. “Out here?”

“Yeah.” He held up his phone to show Mycroft’s text. “Your results came back. You’re clear for Covid. I’m good, too.”

Sherlock stepped across the lounge and settled into his chair. He pulled the mask off his face and let it drop to the floor. His eyes strayed to the ceiling, his hands in his lap. 

“I want to talk. I know we don’t, but we should. I...we should.” John cleared his throat and swallowed, like pushing down a pebble. “I know you...feel things. You just...push them away, right? You don’t let yourself dwell like others do, right?”

Sherlock’s eyes shifted to his, his fingers steepled. “I am careful to guard them so that they do not interfere with my logic. And so that they do not upset the delicate equilibrium of the life I live.”

John placed his elbow on the armrest so he could settle his jaw into his fingers, pinkies at his lips. Sherlock’s face looked serious, but also...ashamed? “I can see why you think feelings would do that to a person, but...feelings don’t have to be like that. Feelings can also make us - feel good. Give us passion. Strengthen us. Anger and sadness let us know when something is wrong, and happiness and love let us know when something is right. Feelings can empower you.”

“I thank you for your tutelage,” Sherlock scoffed. He turned his face. John found himself admiring that incredible profile. “I wish I had your optimism,” Sherlock said. “Your relentless confidence that feelings won’t destroy your personhood, or your relationships.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“ _ Feelings _ have never done any of those things you say for me. They’ve only made me vulnerable and others have taken advantage of those vulnerabilities.” Sherlock squeezed his eyes like he couldn’t believe what he was saying, or hated himself for saying it.

John wanted to reach out to him, but it wasn’t what they did. Sherlock might have a strong gravitational pull, but he repelled objects too. 

_ Hold my hand.  _ For the efficiency of a run.

A stiff-backed hug at John’s wedding. 

Peeling off a jacket bomb in a darkened pool. 

Everything was either necessity or an affectionate act originating from John.

“No one should have taken advantage of you. They’re the pissers in that situation.”

Sherlock’s lower lip jutted like a boulder on a cliffside. John followed the shape with his eyes. “Would you...would you tell me what happened?”

“More knocking me off the pedestal?”

“You fell from that pedestal when you jumped off a rooftop, you know.” It shot from his lips before he could stop it. he shook his head. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair -”

Sherlock paled as his eyes dropped to his lap. “It was for you, you know.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Moriarty. He said - he said he’d kill you. And Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. If I didn’t kill myself first.”

The knowledge swept over John like a tsunami. Detritus slammed into his chest. Water roared in his ears. “You - you never said -”

“Right. There was Mary and I - I didn’t - well, it’s all past now.” Sherlock stared into the fire, the shadows and light throwing his face into sharp relief. “I never knew what to say to you.”

“But just one word, Sherlock.” Waterlogged. Chaotic. John struggled to keep it together.

“I couldn’t chance it. I couldn’t. Believe me, John - I - I wanted to. Every day. Not a day went by without my thinking of you. It - it was dangerous. You think I was living a life of spies and glory and - it wasn’t like that. Yes, I did clever things. Things that - I could hear you, in my mind, telling me I was brilliant and amazing. All those things you used to say about me. But the work itself wasn’t so glamourous. And I wasn’t always brilliant. And, I didn’t want to admit that to you, because I think, in my own way, staying on that pedestal protected me, too.”

John’s heart thudded against his breastbone like the frantic beat of a drum. The roar continued in his ears.

“You think I am a brave man, but I am a coward. I can’t - I couldn’t face my feelings, because I always thought to acknowledge them would be my downfall. And in a way, they were, but they also taught me things... Taught me that I could withstand terrible things. That I could feel, and watch as what I desired moved further and further away from me. And that I’d survive it. I would come out stronger. I have come out stronger. But there are scars. Literal and figurative.”

_ Watch as what I desired moved further and further away.  _ John knew the feeling well.

“That day in the quad, I was sixteen. I had just...I was leaving the dorm of an upperclassman who had impressed upon me a certain romantic and carnal interest. I thought - I thought he was genuine. He wasn’t. His friends planned an ambush of sorts and the reason why I was running was because I was running away from them and their cameras while wearing only a towel. The dog - made it worse. They caught up to me and now I was bleeding and wrapped in a towel. And there was Victor, standing around like some Greek god.”

John tried not to wince.

“He blocked me from the guys with their cameras, and I ran into a hedge. Ran along the length of it until I reached my own dorm.”

John could picture it - young, gawky, painfully bright Sherlock. Gay. About to have his first sexual experience. The shock. The humiliation. His desperate run through the campus for safety. Victor.

“And when I saw Victor again, and he began flirting with me - I lost my temper with him. I thought - I thought he’d be like the other one. But he was...persistent. Genuine. Said he wanted to be friends. It became more than that after a fashion.”

John’s stomach squeezed, but he forced himself to say, “I’m so glad he did that for you, Sherlock.”  _ I ought to shake Victor’s hand, rather than stew in this jealousy. _

“And in time...Victor left.” Sherlock twiddled his fingers. John watched the rhythmic tapping of fingers against one another. “I was...I didn’t handle it well.”

“He was your first, Sherlock.” He rubbed his chin and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. His first girl was stamped in his brain forever. It had been right at the time. Will had been his first guy, and that was right at the time, too, wasn’t it? Even if the ending was tragic and John was terrified of ending the same way. “The first is the hardest to get over. After that, it gets easier.”

“Does it?”

“It does. Didn’t you - was there anyone else after Victor?”

Sherlock’s eyes glazed over. “Nothing serious. I did some hands-on research to hone my abilities for flirting and seduction for cases, but I never let myself get so close to someone again. Not...purposely, anyway.” He folded his hands into his lap, like two white doves settling on his thighs.

John’s stomach flipped. “Seduction? Like Janine?”

Sherlock laughed. “Oh, Janine. Yes, like with her. But...she’s doing well for herself in spite of playing the jilted lover.” A little sparkle in Sherlock’s eyes made John smile. “And women differ a bit from men, but…”

“Did these people who you used for research know it was simple research?”

Sherlock smiled, a mischievous, cocky smile that was so familiar to John it hurt. “I don’t think they minded. It turns out I’m rather good.”

John barked a laugh. It sounded unnatural in the quiet of the room with only the crackle of the fireplace. He worked his throat muscles and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m surprised no one’s come around looking for repeat performances, then,” he joked.

Sherlock looked pensive. “Only the chippy owner, but he’s no strings attached, as they say, anyway.”

John boggled at this as his stomach twisted with a hot anger, a spout of murky green-water jealousy. “Oh?”

Sherlock flicked his fingers in his direction. “As I said, nothing of importance. No. I have learned my lesson when it comes to feelings.”

“Sherlock,” John said, pushing the issue of Sherlock’s admission to casual sex aside. “It’s not - it’s not always like that. It’s - you said it yourself. You were made stronger. You were saying earlier about how it taught you things about yourself. Made you stronger. You can’t mean one arsehole’s prank on an unsuspecting teenager, can you? What about...what about what Victor wrote? What do you feel about that?”

Sherlock licked his upper lip in a slow swipe. His eyes fixed on a point over John’s shoulder. “Yes. Well. I don’t think it means what you think it means, John.”

John waved his hand. “I’m sorry, what? I think it’s pretty clear to me.”

“It’s not…” Sherlock drew in a breath and exhaled. Leaned forward in his chair with his elbows on the armrest. “What I’m about to say may end our friendship, John.”

Cold spiked his gut. “What? I - with everything else we’ve been through?”

“This is different.”

“Different?”

Sherlock’s eyes lifted to meet his. He was very still, like a predator about to strike. The air around them seemed close, thick, the smoke from the fireplace invading his nostrils and the streetlight that filtered through the curtains dimming. Their world was only here, this moment, and John was afraid. 

“What is it?” John asked, his voice a scratchy whisper.

Sherlock parted his lips, and for a moment, John wondered what it would be like to kiss him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a moment to thank all the WIP readers. Y'all are the unsung heroes of fanfic, and thank you for hanging in there. <3

“The lines Victor highlighted were not intended for me. Not in the way you think.” Sherlock licked his lips again, his voice a gentle rasp of gravel. “He left those words, and his note, because like you, he thinks I should be...romantically involved.”

Lost, John stared. “I...but with who? Didn’t he…?”

“Victor would have liked to revisit the past, in a physical sense. No, those words weren’t his declaration of love for me. They were a reminder to me. The whole book is a reminder to me. That even ‘great men’ can love, and still be considered great.”

“Then...okay.” His heart pumped like he'd been running. Running away from and running toward... he couldn't say.

“He was telling me that I should go after what I want. That I should - confess my feelings to the object of my affections.” Sherlock’s gaze met his A sting at the back of John’s eyes alarmed him, even as his throat thickened like it was full of wet, earthy loam.

“I don’t - who?” he said.

“You, John.” Sherlock pulled his eyes away and John wished he could grab his face, pull it back, make Sherlock look at him. Repeat what he was saying. But oh how Sherlock hated to repeat himself. How John hated it sometimes - sometimes, not always - when Sherlock made him feel stupid. Again he had the feeling at being at the cliff's edge, arms pinwheeling, no one to catch him.

“He’s telling me, in his note ‘Think about it.’ He’s telling me to consider what I told him in so few words. That I could not return his affections because they were already spoken for.”

“By...me?” John couldn’t help his small voice, as if he’d shrank as small as a mouse. _Sherlock._ Sherlock who was bigger than the day was long, who was a legend in his own right, to have feelings for John?

It was too much.

Like the owl devouring the mouse after its silent flight. “You - you can’t just -” He pumped his fists open and closed.

“I apologise. I didn’t want to destroy us. Sometimes, I thought I observed in you an attraction. I could never - I could never parse the data. I’m sorry if it’s unwanted -”

“Shut up.” John dug his fists into his eyes, trying to chase back the stupid feelings of _unwanted_ and _old_ and _not gay._ “I can’t believe -” his voice choked, the swelling of saturated earth thick in his throat again. 

“John?”

“You dick. You - jumped off a bloody roof -” his voice petered out, thin with old grief. “ _God,”_ he sobbed. “You’re not the coward. I’m the coward. I’m the bloody coward.” He sucked in a great gasp of air. The failure of a marriage, the pressing against his sternum when he thought of Rosie, the back and forth with Sherlock over the years, the hot anger and the cold misery, the slithering, ugly jealousy over Irene and Janine and even Mary and now Victor. _Not gay. Not gay. Not gay._

It had been there all along, hand't it? His unwanted attraction. His love for a beautiful and brave, and insane man. And through it all, Sherlock, _Sherlock,_ was saying he had feelings for John. 

He covered his face with his hands as his ears flamed and his throat grew tight with unreleased sobs. His chest resonated with the sensation of a breaking dam, water flooding its banks, and him drowning, him gasping to breathe.

Arms. Warm, heavy arms settled around him. The press of a chest against the back of his hands. A rumble all around him of a voice he’d adored for years. “John. It’s all right.”

“It’s shit,” he said.

A sigh. “It is what it is.” 

John let his hands slide from his face and clutched to the front of Sherlock’s tee-shirt. He buried his nose into the vee of the hollow of the man’s clavicle. The blocked passage of his throat began to ease. Exhale. Warmth. Inhale. Poncy body lotion. A man’s musk. Exhale.

“John,” Sherlock said in his ear. “Am I to deduce that my feelings are somewhat returned?”

John scoffed, wetly. “You must have known.”

“I could never be sure. You were distant, and at times angry, easy to trigger. I had thought, recently, that our situation required you to be here, and that you resented it. Resented me, as you were unable to go home and reconcile with Mary.”

John pulled him closer. Sherlock went down to his knees, slotting himself between John’s thighs, their arms wrapped around each other. 

“Then I haven’t destroyed us?” Now Sherlock sounded small.

“No. You nutter. No, you haven’t. I - I don’t want to talk right now. Let’s just. Let’s just do this for a while.”

“Can I have a pillow for my knees, then?”

John laughed, laughed like he hadn’t in weeks. Possibly months. It was as if a bird fluttered where his heart had been, and now untethered, it moved through his mouth and flew high into the air, wild and free. “Let’s get on the sofa.”

* * *

They’d spent most of the night on the sofa. Sherlock made them tea and John stoked the fire. The two of them sat side by side, sipping from Mrs Hudson’s cups and remarking little on their situation. John’s thoughts swarmed him and he was more than a little aware of the warmth of Sherlock’s body next to his. They held hands like they were teens, John’s tea in his left hand, Sherlock’s in his right. The touch seemed to burn between them, not in any way that was destructive, but like wrapping a hand around a warm mug after spending a day outdoors in the cold.

John was rethinking Sherlock’s words - his watching what he desired going further and further away. His efforts to make John happy by planning his wedding, by pushing him to reconcile with his wife. By being his support and his best friend, and never saying anything about his affection. It was his way of showing love, and John had never thought twice about it.

“Why did you push me toward Mary?” he asked. It happened years before, but John found himself full of questions. 

“I - I know that you are someone who prefers romance, in order to feel complete,” Sherlock said. “Mary was...the one you chose. And there was the question of the child. I don’t believe Mary was dangerous to you or to Rosie. But to me… It made sense to give you what you indicated you wanted, and protect myself at the same time. Which meant I would stay alive to protect you. And your family.”

John covered his eyes with one hand. He didn’t have any tears left and thank goodness for that. He was wrung out like a rag. “I thought she was what I wanted. But after all that… We never quite got on the same again. And when she left and we brought her back...I thought - well, I thought it was another chance. To make things right between us. But, the truth is...I was feeling angry. And then guilty. I - I had begun a text affair with a young woman I met on a bus.”

Sherlock went rigid beside him. 

“I ended it. I knew it was wrong. I'm not proud. I wanted to hurt Mary. I was...I wasn’t myself for a long time. I was angry and I was feeling tired and like I’d been played for a fool, by her and by you. I wanted something simple. With someone who made me feel young and appreciated.”

“Did Mary -”

“Yeah. She figured it out. It led to a whole other round of talks about how we had to fix things, how we were going to make it right. She took a job as a part-time receptionist - and god, that must have been killing her. Still killing her. But, I couldn’t bring myself to care, really. We divided our time with Rosie, though she had the lion’s share. I think as a way to do penance, really, so I could go on cases with you. It wasn’t a happy existence, and it wasn’t fair to either of us.”

“And then quarantine.”

“And then quarantine. I realized that we were living like roommates. Not like - not like you and me roommates. But, like regular roommates who happened to share the same bed. It was stupid, really, now that I look back on it. She was never Mary Morstan - I still don’t know her real name. She never shared anything about her old life, even though I shared about mine.”

Sherlock hummed. “Sometimes, I think Mary and I are more alike than I’m comfortable with.”

John let out a disdainful chuckle. “In some ways, except for a couple big exceptions.”

Sherlock looked at him. 

“You drive me around the bend. But, now that I know...you did things for me because you - you love me.” He swallowed around the word ‘love,’ but now he looked at Sherlock. “You love me, right?”

Sherlock’s mouth crept into a small smile, though his eyes stayed averted from John’s. “Unarguably.”

John’s chest fluttered. “And, and Mary shooting you, Mary leaving us...that was all about her. You, who I called a machine...you loved me all along. And you had stupid ways of showing it, but it’s what you knew, I guess.” John put his teacup down. Squeezed Sherlock’s hand. “But promise me one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Ask me what I want. Tell me things. Don’t - don’t assume you know what’s best for me or what I want. I won’t put up with it anymore. Not from anyone. I can’t - it wasn’t right for you to treat me that way.”

Sherlock sucked his lips into his teeth. His eyes glimmered. “John. I know now that I was wrong. I can only hope to do better.”

John stared at the book, now sitting on the coffee table. “And I can’t believe this is - this is all coming out now. I’m still in a bit of a haze.”

“John, can I read you something?”

John’s heart thumped. “From that book?”

“Yes.”

John gave a slow nod. Sherlock grabbed the book from the table and opened it. He turned to a page he’d obviously put to memory. John wondered why he even bothered with the book, as his eyes weren’t even focused on the words as he spoke: “‘I embrace you. I kiss you. I feel wild. Were you here, I’d bite you; I long to do so - I, whom, women jeer at for my coldness - I, charitably supposed to be incapable of sex, so little have I indulged in it. 

“Yet, I feel within me now the appetites of wild beasts, the instincts of a love that is carnivorous, capable of tearing flesh to pieces. Is this love? Perhaps it is the opposite. Perhaps in my case, it’s the heart that is impotent.’” He paused. Closed the book slowly. “These are the words Gustave Flaubert wrote to Louise Colet. It was then I knew...I knew that this lingering sensation I’d been feeling since I came back...was love. It’s not always so...desperate, but when I let it out to indulge, the power of it can knock me senseless.”

John swallowed. “Sounds a lot like lust.” Not that he minded that. He was beginning to wonder at what point he could just throw himself at Sherlock.

Sherlock laughed. “I recognize the chemicals of lust quite easily. Yet, it was another passage that cemented the conclusion. From Victor Hugo: ‘When two souls, who have sought each other for however long in the throng, have finally found each other...a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are...begins on earth and continues forever in heaven.’”

John licked his lips as his insides trembled with a soft echo of fear. “I never expected you to be so...poetic. Or drawn to the poetic things, I suppose.”

“To be sure, I prefer the Bard. But this book...Victor was reading some of the tripe to me, and I had to tell him to cease his declarations. That’s how - that’s how it came to you. How he came to know. And I read it while he slept, and I saw myself in some of the passages.”

John stood and took the book from him. He thumbed through it until he found the line he was looking for. He had been wondering how to tell Sherlock that he loved him, too. Nothing had seemed enough, not even the three little words strung together in order. But, this...Sherlock would understand. He’d know what John meant. He opened his mouth and recited, “‘Honor with your presence the man who, if only he were free, would go a thousand miles to throw himself at your feet and never move from there.’”

Sherlock stared at the book in John’s hands. John watched him as his eyes moved from the book to John.

“And, John,” Sherlock said, “are you free?”

John’s mouth curved into a soft smile. “Yeah. The divorce will take a little while, but the relationship is over and for all intents and purposes...I am. And I don’t ever want to move from here again.”

Sherlock licked his upper lip and smiled. “I’d like to kiss you.”

John’s heart gave a little skip. A tiny knot of panic rose, made itself known to him. But it wasn’t the tremendous panic he used to feel, rather it only nudged at him. Let him know that old fears lay there, but that they weren’t so near the surface as they used to be. “Kiss me, then.”

“I thought I should ask, rather than assume,” Sherlock said as he stepped forward.

John grinned. “I like that you’re already catching on.” The distance between them seemed too far but then suddenly Sherlock was there, cupping the back of John’s neck and framing the side of John’s face with his other hand. John leaned forward and sealed their mouths together. The first kiss, the first touch of lips, the gasp they shared between them - it was what John imagined it must have been like for the first living thing to breathe air out of water, that exchange of molecules and that path of tissue into the new lungs.

A soft moan escaped Sherlock. John dropped the book. It landed with a thud on the floor but John couldn’t care. He slid his hands into Sherlock’s curls, opened his mouth, touched Sherlock’s lips with his tongue until Sherlock parted his mouth in answer. John skimmed his tongue over Sherlock’s and explored. Soon they were pressed chest to chest, a lust flaring all through John’s body like he hadn’t felt in years. He braced his feet on the floor and pushed Sherlock back on the sofa. He pulled back long enough to look at Sherlock’s face, which seemed to glow. Sherlock grinned at him. 

John dove back in for another kiss but Sherlock put up one finger. “John, I feel as if I should mention something.”

“What?”

“Despite the impression I’ve made earlier about my exploits, I feel I must tell you that I have actually been saving myself for marriage.”

“What?” John yanked back to an upright position. “But - you said -”

A glint in Sherlock’s eye and a twitch of his lips caught his attention. “You…”

Sherlock burst into uproarious laughter. His head thumped against the back of the sofa. “Your face!”

“You berk!” John shoved him against the shoulder. “I can’t believe you just did that!”

Sherlock howled with laughter, his face a mass of wrinkles and his mouth open with a wide, white-toothed grin like a slice of waxing moon. 

“Just for that, I’m not going to kiss you for at least another hour!” John shouted as he settled on the other end of the sofa. He couldn’t stop a grin from splitting his face, though. 

Sherlock rolled over on his side, still laughing. “Your face!”

“Yeah, I hate you,” John said, laughing now.

Sherlock settled, still grinning, his eyes on John.

That's when John remembered where he sat. The bottle of lube was tucked away in the crack on this end. He pulled it out and showed it to Sherlock. "And are you free?"

Sherlock smiled. "John. The seal on that isn't even broken. It's brand new."

John looked down. Sure enough, the thin curve of plastic sealing was there, intact. The bottle was unopened. John's face flamed as he palmed his forehead. "I'm an idiot."

"But you're my idiot," Sherlock said. "And I think we’ve waited long enough." He leaned toward John with a smouldering smile. "Take me to bed.”

Something rolled low in John’s belly as that bit of lust flared to life again. Nerves skittered across his skin, but he wanted this, wanted this more than anything he’d wanted in a while. That tiny lump of panic was gone now, like a lump of sugar dissolved in warm water. “My room.”

Sherlock’s face twisted. “Why yours?”

“Yours is a sickroom. Let’s go.”

Sherlock’s face turned predatory as they moved from the sofa to the hallway. He shoved John against the wall and John let him. Sherlock caged him in and kissed him, wild and unleashed. John was so full of euphoria he barely noticed as Sherlock herded him up the stairs. When they reached his door, Sherlock threw it open and pushed John toward the bed.

John turned the tables on him by twisting him around and shoving Sherlock down on the bed. He crawled on top of him, mouths crashing together as he sprawled over him - but not before he noticed the outline of Sherlock’s erection in his pyjama bottoms. Reaching between them, he unbuttoned his own trousers and adjusted his cock upright - the wet tip showing just above the waistband of his pants. Sherlock watched as he did, and when his mouth parted with a hungry look in his eyes, a fire broke loose in John. It made him loose-limbed, heady with a hot desire as Sherlock flipped him onto his back and dove for his cock. He licked and sucked at the tip. John moaned loud and long.

Sherlock yanked John's trousers off and peeled back his pants, letting his cock and balls hang free over the hem. When Sherlock fondled his balls and sucked one into his mouth, John’s entire body jerked. “Oh god, Sherlock, oh god.”

Sherlock released his ball and went for the other. Rolled it across his tongue. John whined and jerked again. Sherlock released it and dragged his tongue up the underside of his cock. The man was like a forest fire, unstoppable and ungodly hot. John’s hips writhed as Sherlock engulfed his penis with his mouth and sucked hard. He circled his tongue around the flare of the head. Sucked again. Tension built in the seat of John’s groin.

“God, Sherlock, come here. I’m gonna come if you keep doing that,” John said, grabbing Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock slithered up the length of John’s body and captured his mouth with his. John reveled in the sensation of Sherlock’s cock next to his, separated only by a thin layer of cotton. “Take your bottoms off!” he said when they parted for air.

While Sherlock peeled off his bottoms, John broke the seal on the lube, and slicked up his cock. Sherlock’s pupils were blown as he watched John pleasure himself. “You like watching, huh?” John teased.

Sherlock was like a panther - all taut muscles and rapacious stare. “Stroke it. Show me what you like, John. I want to see it.”

John banged his head against the pillow. Of course, it would be like this. Of course, Sherlock would sit there deducing him while they had sex. It was hot. The hottest to have all that attention on him while he pumped his prick. 

“Come here, oh fuck, come here and kiss me.” Sherlock obliged, and their teeth nearly clacked together with the fervor of their kisses. Sherlock’s hand stole over John’s. John handed him the tube and Sherlock leaned back to apply lube to his own cock. Sherlock’s cock was a thing of beauty - long and thick, rosy-tipped. 

_I love cock,_ John thought to himself. The idea both frightened him and caught fire in his loins. “I want to touch it.” 

Sherlock crawled over him, bracing himself on his elbows and aligning his prick with John’s. John used both hands to press their dicks together, creating a tunnel for them to fuck. It was a little awkward at first, but the two of them found their rhythm, John clutching their cocks as the they thrust their hips, pushing soft silky skin against skin, the lube making it slick and easy.

John’s orgasm crept up on him, tension building and burning low in the cradle of his hips. It came like a catapult, launching his body into a rictus of ecstasy. Come spattered his stomach and he rode out the aftershocks, releasing his dick but keeping his grip on Sherlock’s. “Oh, oh, god. Oh god, Sherlock.”

He roused himself from the orgasm-induced torpor to focus his efforts on Sherlock who watched him with something like adoration on his face. “You’re beautiful,” Sherlock said.

No one had ever said those words to him, and John would never admit that they had an effect on him. He redoubled his efforts on Sherlock, tunneling his hands together as Sherlock fucked his grip. His muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched, his eyes screwed shut, and John watched in wonder. It wasn’t long before Sherlock went rigid, shouted, and wetness joined John’s come on his torso.

He collapsed over John. John couldn’t bring himself to mind the heavy weight over his body. The small bit of panic was back again, below his sternum, but he didn’t mind it. It wasn’t the same terror he used to feel. It wasn’t squeezing his chest.

Sherlock rolled off of him and onto his side. John sat up, marveling at the long-limbed body that lay in his bed. Sherlock in the soft, pliable soporific of post-orgasm living. Without hesitation, he smoothed one hand over Sherlock’s flank and over the crest of his hip. He dipped behind that to touch the curve of Sherlock’s arse. He’d had dreams about that arse, he could finally admit to himself.

“Be good to me and I’ll let you fuck me,” Sherlock said with an impish grin.

John flushed, but he smiled. “Shut it.” He fell onto the bed beside his lover and stretched. Sherlock watched him. John turned on his side so that they could look at each other, marvel at where they were, what they had done. Consider where they might go. 

“Hey, so that chippy owner you said who came around looking for a repeat performance?” John said.

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Yes?”

“What chippy is that? Because we’re never going there again.”

Sherlock laughed, a loud, happy laugh, and John joined in, moving closer, as if he could fuse his body to Sherlock’s.

* * *

John pulled on his jumper and took one last look in the mirror. A little swipe at his hair with his fingers and he was done. He headed down the stairs and into the lounge where Sherlock paced. 

“I’m working an eight-hour shift today,” John said.

Sherlock snapped a glare at him and away. If he had a tail it would have twitched, and a line of fur it would have raised on end.

“Don’t be angry.”

Sherlock stilled. Exhaled. “I’m not angry with you, John. It’s in your nature to tread into danger.”

John glanced at the floor and back at Sherlock. “I’ll be as careful as I can be.”

“I know...it’s just that...this is an enemy without a face. It’s nothing I can...guard you from without locking you in my bedroom.” 

A snicker escaped John.

Sherlock smiled as he straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. It was the first time in the weeks since John had been here that he was dressed in one of his bespoke suits with the dark jacket. “As tempting as it is, I won’t do that to you. Just...take care.” His voice was steady, almost aloof.

John walked across the floor and yanked him into an embrace. “When I'm there, I’ll be thinking of you.”

Sherlock slid his arms around him and held him tight.

“What will you be doing while I’m gone?” John said, his throat clogged with emotion.

“Mycroft is funding a promising aspect of research into a vaccine. I’ll be going over their findings. Doing my part, I hope.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Better every day.”

John hugged him tighter. “And you’ll stay inside?”

“Mycroft’s emailed me the files.”

“Okay.” John tilted his chin and met Sherlock in a soft, open-lipped kiss. “I’ll be home before you know it.”

“This is me, John,” Sherlock murmured by his ear. “I’ll be counting the seconds.”

John smiled into the front of Sherlock’s shirt. “Yeah. Yeah, this is you. And I love that about you.” It had been easier and easier for them, dancing a bit around the words, but both of them knew the love was there regardless. He leaned back. “Gotta go. I can’t be late.”

Sherlock squeezed his arms one last time and released him. “John. ‘I cannot help loving you more than is good for me.’”

John knew the next line by heart and smiled as he beat Sherlock to it. “I shall feel all the happier when I see you again.”

Sherlock’s face seemed to glow a little. John felt better about leaving.

He grabbed his jacket and slid his arms into it. “Text me,” he said.

“I will,” said Sherlock.

John stepped down the stairs and out onto the stoop of 221B. His skin crawled a bit with the idea of presenting this new person to the world. To his coworkers, at least. Getting divorced. They’d agreed to go public with their relationship once the divorce was final. It gave John time to wrap his mind around the fact that what he had desired all along had become his reality.

He dialed a number in his mobile.

“Hello, John,” Mary said.

“Hi. Listen. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being a rubbish husband.”

Silence. 

“I’m not asking for forgiveness -”

“Neither am I,” she said.

“I only wanted you to know. I regret that I rushed us, and I regret that I didn’t let you go when I should have.”

A pause. Then, “I’ll learn to be happy for you, John. Thank you for the apology.” _Click._

He pushed the phone back into his pocket. Glanced up at the window. 

Sherlock stood there, watching John with an uncertain-seeming smile. John smiled back. Waved. Sherlock’s smile became more sure, lifted into his eyes. It was a beautiful sight that made John forget to breathe for just a moment. He turned and started down the street toward the tube station, his chest filling with warmth.

The street was nearly empty. Few cars passed. The pigeons were plentiful, but the people were missing. It was a new world.

For now, he would do his part on the frontline. When it was safe, he could see Rosie again. In the meantime, each night he would return home to this flat, and to the man he loved. In the unspooling of all his old fears and griefs, and with Sherlock by his side, they would learn what they would become. Together.

His lungs drew air with ease, as light and as expansive as the grey London sky in the time of spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. This story was not in my plans this year, but it happened. I do have other planned Johnlock stories in the making. _The Pull of You_ , _The Killing Principle_ , and _Into the Gloaming_ are all entirely written, and have to undergo the editing and beta-ing process before posting. 
> 
> If you like my work, you may like a spooky post-canon fic, _[Haunted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162524/chapters/50369450)_ , or a bittersweet-with-a-happy-ending-oneshot, _[The Stars Upon Your Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21712174)_. 
> 
> If you like Mystrade, I've [got plenty](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=332818&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Vulpesmellifera). 
> 
> Thanks again to my Beta Team, notjustmom and saratonin, for making this story better than it was. 
> 
> Thanks to CarmillaCarmine for creating the Isolated Johnlock Collection. 
> 
> And thank you to @avawtsn on Twitter for unknowingly providing the prompt.


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